On a November day in 1957 I found myself standing in front of Miss Grosier’s first grade class in Hillcrest Elementary School, trying to think of a really good word. She had us playing this game in which each kid had to offer up a word to the class, and for every classmate who couldn’t spell your word, you got a point—provided of course that you could spell the word. Whoever got the most points received the coveted gold star.
“Bouillabaisse,” I said, finally.
“You don’t even know what that is,” Miss Grosier scolded.
“It’s fish soup.”
“You can’t spell that.”
“Can too.”
“Come here. Write it,” She demanded.
I wrote it. She looked it up, and admitted that is was, indeed correct.
Easiest gold star I ever won. And right here, right now, I’d like to thank, albeit somewhat belatedly, whoever wrote the Donald Duck comic book in which I found the word bouillabaisse. Also, I’d like to thank my mother who read me that comic book and so many others when I was four and five…. I learned to read from those session long before I started school. While most of my classmates were struggling with See Spot Run, I was reading Superman. I knew what indestructible meant, could spell it, and would have cold-bloodedly used it to win another gold star if I hadn’t been banned from competition after bouillabaisse.
Jim Shooter, as quoted in The Power of Reading by Stephen Krashen
American Born Chinese by 
The Arrival by 
Drama by 
El Deafo by 
March by 
Maus by 
Persepolis by 
The Shadow Hero by 
Understanding Comics by 
link info | 
highly recommended
link info | highly recommended