Back in my day, they had a program called RIF, Reading Is Fundamental. During a RIF Drive, the school would accommodate volunteers from RIF to allow us kids to spend one period in the auditorium where table upon table stacked high with books, mostly used paperbacks, would have been set up for us to browse. We were allowed a certain number of books, I'm not sure how many, to take and keep as our own. Free.
One book that caught my eye for its fascinating cover art was a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories, I think it was "S is for Space". I snatched this up, read it that night...the whole thing...and was hooked.
Thereafter, I sought out everything Ray Bradbury had ever written and ate up every word he wrote.
I was transported to strange new worlds, I looked at our world through different eyes and let my imagination soar.
Today, Ray left this world but in my heart he will live on.
Like Issac Asimov, another of my heroes, Ray Bradbury was not only a producer of fiction. He spoke up about social issues of our times, especially regarding the exploration of space.
Here's a quote of his from a couple of years ago with which I wholeheartedly agree:
"...We should go back to the moon. We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever."