I was a horrible student. One day, my sixth-grade teacher got absolutely fed up with me because I was disrupting the class. Instead of detention, I had to lead the topic discussions for Julie of the Wolves, the book we were reading at the time. Turned out, I loved my ‘punishment.’ A book that had been dreadful for me—and several of my classmates, actually—came alive. I told my teacher that I wanted to teach English literature someday, and she agreed. For the first time in my life, she told my parents that I was an acceptable student.