I'd like to tell the story of the best gift I have ever received. It was when I was 8 years old and I was expecting a party, cake and toys... and yes, that all happened. But one of the gifts was (and still is) one of my favorites. My parents gave me a couple books from Jules Verne (20.000 leagues under the sea and From the Earth to the Moon). Of course, at first I didn't liked a lot, but eventually I started reading. Every once in a while my father or my mother gave me new books (it was a Verne weekly edition with the sunday newspaper, but they also came with other authors). That's how my love for books started.
The gift wasn't the books, the real special gift was the way to nurture curiosity and imagination, found new world, perspectives and characters that have helped me in every moment of my life. Now I'm a grown up, but when I open a book I can remember that same feeling of awe that I had when I opened my first couple of books.