At times, his parents would reward the children by giving them a nickel for each book they read. When the family moved to a house that was far from the library, Marie made special trips there and brought home books in a huge box.
It was hardly necessary to reward young Gregory for reading. He took to it easily. As he told J. Sydney Jones in an interview for SATA, "I learned my letters well before kindergarten and was reading simple stories to myself and to my younger brothers and sister with panache and invention if not with accuracy." Maguire's interest in reading later translated into his vocation: "I read like a fiend. This will not surprise any reader ... it would be the rare writer who hadn't found the love of books while he or she was a child." At first he was indiscriminate, reading everything in sight. Later, after discovering four similar editions of James Barrie's Peter Pan and being disappointed that the different editions didn't yield different texts, he told Jones he made an important choice: "I then decided to read just what I wanted."
Surrounded by Wordsmiths
Several of Maguire's siblings have grown up to be professional writers.
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