The first book I remember reading is “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman. I must have been 5 or 6, and already attracted to the tall bookshelves that stood in most rooms of our home in Manila.

The book must have belonged to one of my four older sisters, because by the time I spent the better part of that summer with it, the hardbound volume was torn and worn, well-loved to the ragged degree.

The story, if you think too long about it, can be scary: Mama Bird leaves her baby egg in search of food. While she’s gone, her baby hatches and with optimistic bravado goes off to look for his mother.

“Are you my mother?” he asks of a dog, a cow, and even a steam shovel, before his Mama returns for a happy ending.

I was so into the book that I didn’t even realize I was reading.

Children’s books can change your life.

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“Are You My Mother?” was the first of many childhood favorites, including all the volumes of Winnie the Pooh books, and later, “Little Women,” and the Hardy Boys series.

So you can imagine how happy I was when Firstborn Son came along and I had a reason to add new classics to my childhood classics shelf. We loved anything by Eric Carle, but especially “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”; “Goodnight Moon” and “Runaway Bunny” by Margaret Wise Brown (both titles so well-loved I had to buy new hardcovers, and anything by David Shannon of “No, David!” fame and Mo Willems, who’s “Leonardo, the Terrible Monster” never fails to give my boys hysterics.

Our favorite storytime is bedtime, so the nearly wordless “Goodnight Gorilla” by Peggy Rathman is a gem. Our copy is even autographed, but I didn’t mind when the boys bent, carried and generally loved it to pieces, the way favorite books should be.

Cheeky Baby had her own “Best of” collection: “When You Were Small” by Sara O’Leary was top on her list. Beautifully written and drawn, you can literally feel your imagination stretch when you read it.

“Every night at bedtime when Henry and his father have a chat” about when he was small, “So small your mother once lost you in the bottom of her purse. When she found you again, you were clinging to an earring she’d lost three years before.” We love it.

All three can still recite lines from Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” because the CD was on heavy rotation in the car. And of course, “The Giving Tree” and “Runny Babbit” will always bring back memories of being read to.

Alas, my three read to themselves these days. We have sent to new homes most of our storytime books: the Disney collections and such. But our best-loved picture books maintain sacred space on the top shelf of a bookcase. I’ve added several titles since Cheeky Baby’s days: “When I Was Small” by Sara O’Leary, and “Just In Case You Ever Wonder” by Max Lucado, one corner tattered where her toddler self had once given it a ruminating chew.

Then there’s “A Child of Books” by Oliver Jeffers, and illustrated by Sam Winston, which always speaks to us about our love of books and where we are always happy, in our world of stories.