Linda Dimitroff, co-manager of Children’s Book World in Rancho Park.

It’s hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t read. My parents read a lot. I was the eldest of four kids. My sisters and I shared a love of fairy tales and poetry. As a child, I really liked “Little Women” and “Heidi” and historical fiction. To this day those still are a great love of mine.

From the time I was little I remember my grandparents giving us books for the holidays and birthdays. It was always a special treat. Giving books is such a joy for our whole family.

Books and reading were always part and parcel in our family. It was a natural move when I decided to go back to work, after having my kids, to do something with books. When my husband and I retire, we want to go into the used and antiquarian book business.

My two children really loved books from the beginning. One of the first gifts my daughter received was [a collection of] books.

We always read to the children and we told stories. We would read stories around the dinner table at night to keep the love of books alive. We just felt that it kept us connected. It could be nonfiction, it could be a poem, it could be anything. We would read and then discuss what we read. And we could expose the kids to things they could not read on their own, like mythology and Shakespeare.

To this day, both of my children still love to read.