My parents, when I was young, read us books... mostly heinlin... starbeast, farmer in the sky, have spacesuit will travel starship troopers... and many more... I would interrupt with questions since i was too young to understant the motivations of the characters... it wasnt just parents entertaining kids, it was an education...

I dont know what the first book I read was, I know I read books before first grade... I read the entre wizard of OZ series before second grade, and started in on sci-fi... I THINK the first scifi I read involved woodland creatures (badgers possums etc) making a rocket... LOL

I did advance to heinlin hogan Anderson and MANY others, My parents had a collection of sci fi books dating back to the 60's - I am not exaggerating, there were over a thousand... my mother still has them all, because destroying books is taboo in our family...

if you treat books and reading as sacred your children will generally take that up...

But the silly stories that are popular now, I dont know what to say, they are trash- no one can deny that- I guess if they get kids reading its good.... but we should give them better things to read... I remember a book that I loved i think it was called "the spaceship under the apple tree" I was maybe 11 when I first read it, but I was totally obsessed with it...