At the library, I ignored dozens of new audiobooks and checked out Old Yeller instead. I wondered why. Was I simply feeling nostalgic, remembering lazy summer afternoons reading beneath the old elm tree in our backyard, or was something deeper drawing me back to a story I'd loved as a child?

The more I thought about it, the more connections I saw. Children are drawn to different kinds of books. Some gravitate toward graphic novels, mysteries, friendship stories, animals, sports, or exotic places. Without realizing it, they may be discovering interests that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Other childhood favorites included Where the Red Fern Grows and The Yearling. Their endings, like Old Yeller’s, left me reaching for tissues, but I'd grown to love the characters deeply, and the endings felt exactly right. As I work on my novel Quiet Talker, the story of a Lakota boy forced to sacrifice the horse he loves, I find myself hoping young readers will care just as deeply about him and his horse as I cared about Old Yeller, Billy's hounds, and Jody's fawn.

Checking out a childhood favorite made me wonder whether a person can predict the adult they’ll become from the books they loved as a child. As a preteen, I adored The Enormous Egg, the story of a dinosaur hatching from an egg laid by a chicken. I reread it last week, and it still worked its magic. Thinking about it now, it isn’t surprising I had an incubator in my classroom for years and continued the hobby after retirement. Faithful readers may even remember my many duck stories or Gertie, our pet gosling who flew alongside our ski boat.

Horse stories such as Misty of Chincoteague and Mary O'Hara's My Friend Flicka series also sparked my imagination, making it almost inevitable that I'd someday take riding lessons and write novels about horses.

As a child, The Cricket in Times Square and E. B. White's Stuart Little earned a special spot on my bookshelf. I still own copies of each today. Stuart Little featured a boy no bigger than a mouse who wanted to belong. The other followed the adventures of a pet cricket trying to find his way home. Looking back, perhaps they nudged me toward creating Snip and Bittersweet, two four-inch-tall Podkins who have adventures in the human world but long to return home.

When I was ten years old, I wasn't thinking about any of this. I simply knew which books captured my attention. Only now, after a lifetime of reading and writing, can I see the connections.

The little girl who loved stories about animals, wild places, friendship, and finding home grew up to write them. Those childhood stories still live on in my books about horses, dogs, birds, survival, and even four-inch-tall Podkins named Snip and Bittersweet.

I finally understand why I reached for Old Yeller instead of something new. I wasn't simply revisiting a favorite book. I was rediscovering the childhood stories that taught me compassion, a love of the outdoors, and the importance of home—stories that shaped my passions, influenced the life I chose to live, and inspired the books I most wanted to write. Long before I dreamed of becoming an author, they were quietly shaping the stories I would someday tell.

Maybe it's worth pulling one of your childhood favorites off the shelf. You might discover it has been quietly telling your story all along.