Not so long ago, Tim Kreider of the Baltimore City Paper wrote of how, as adults, we never love books quite as fervently as we did at the age of 12.

It struck me how true this is. And it's something to keep in mind when choosing Christmas gifts for young people. A thoughtfully chosen book can be a revelation.

We booklovers enjoy them throughout our lives, of course. Our sophistication and tastes continue to develop, giving us greater appreciation and reading satisfaction. At the same time, the 500th book -- no matter how brilliant -- probably doesn't strike us with the same visceral intensity as those fondly remembered early ones.

I first really started to enjoy books in elementary school. That was on Gabriola Island, where my parents were teachers at the two-room school. My mother taught Grade 1 to 3, my father Grades 4 through 6. For the last half hour of the school day, they'd often read to the class.

The books I was enthralled by were the Little House on the Prairie series and The Wind in the Willows. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder's tales of grim pioneer hardship and their earnest moral tone. Hearing them read out was comforting and tangible, like rubbing your hands over a time-worn wooden table.

And I was crazy over Kenneth Grahame's stories about Mole and Ratty cavorting by the riverside in The Wind in the Willows. My favourite character was Mr. Toad -- a well-intentioned but lazy village squire who did funny things like steal motor-cars and ride hot-air balloons. I still remember my father's voice. He read very well, with crisp English-accented diction, his voice rising dramatically during the exciting bits.

Later, around the age of 12, I started to read more on my own. Back then, it seemed there were endless hours on the weekends to lounge on the bed and read. Although I was probably supposed to be doing homework or something.

I remember especially enjoying Ernest Hemingway around this time. Because my father had taken an American literature course at the University of Victoria one summer, a copy of The Sun Also Rises was on the bookshelf. For a youngster it was certainly a curious choice -- I was about 13 then. The story is adult, about debauched expatriates boozing their way around Spain. The hero, Jake Barnes, is impotent because of a war wound.

I picked it up only because it was there. I was too young to truly understand much of The Sun Also Rises.

Yet I read and enjoyed it because Hemingway's style is so simple and accessible. Anyone able to read on a basic level can appreciate the beauty and elegance of his language. It was really this book that made me a lifetime fiction reader. I was hooked.

As a young teen, some books connected with an almost electric intensity. I remember being thrilled by the irreverent voice of Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero of The Catcher in the Rye. I loved Holden's humour, the way he sarcastically prodded his dull, pimply schoolmate Ackley to tell "the fascinating story of your life."

Paul Zindel's The Pigman struck me this way, too. Here's the novel's irresistible beginning: "Now, I don't like school, which you might say is one of the factors that got us involved with this old guy we nicknamed the Pigman. Actually, most of the time I hate school, but then again most of the time I hate everything."

The Pigman was one of my girlfriend's school books. I'm not sure if she ever read it. I couldn't put it down after those opening sentences, though. I've almost forgotten the girlfriend; I'll never forget that book.

I wonder, when it comes to Christmas gift-giving, if the old-fashioned book gets lost in the stampede for the latest electronic wonders.

I hope parents still give their children novels for Christmas. Even if it's Stephenie Meyers's Twilight saga. You know, it could be the start of something good.