How I Got Hooked

I couldn't have said it better myself (just replace "Ribsy" by "The Boxcar Children")...

"[...] reading “Ribsy” was the first time I felt the power that a writer could hold over a reader — what I’d later come to know as the power of literature. Ribsy and Henry and all the other characters felt real to me. I cared about them. I craved to know what was going to happen to them every time I turned a page. It was wonderful. Through some kind of magic I had been whisked into a world made entirely out of words. Just words! I hadn’t had any idea that that was possible. But, as soon as I closed the book, I wanted it to happen again. More than that, I wanted to learn how to wield this magic myself. And so my fate was sealed."

(Source: Nicholas Carr, in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/21/the-books-that-authors-love-to-give-and-receive/my-first-page-turner)