Top Ten "Gateway" Books/Authors In Our Reading Journey

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's Top Ten list is
"Top Ten "Gateway" Books/Authors In Our Reading Journey"

Nicole's Top Five

1. J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter
   This series will always be the most near and dear to my heart. As many books as I have loved and will love, nothing will surpass my love for Harry Potter. These books were my childhood. I pre-ordered special editions and waited anxiously for them to arrive so that I could read without pause. I attended book launch events and midnight premieres. I doubt I would love reading like I do today, had it not been for having this series in my life. I have only the fondest of memories.
2. Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt Adventures
   I remember traveling with my mother as a kid and she was reading Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler. I was fascinated by the mystery of Atlantis at the time so I was compelled to pick up this book right after she finished. And I loved it! Clive Cussler takes pieces of history and weaves them into this un-put-downable action and adventure story. I was completely blown away by the book and so I proceeded to read through all of his Dirk Pitt (and some Kurt Austin) stories. His books were definitely a major part of my reading past.
3. Dan Brown's Robert Langdon Series
   The last book in the Harry Potter series released the summer after I graduated High School. And I went away to college with ZERO books. And I didn't read much during that time. But I did read Dan Brown's books. First The Da Vinci Code and then Angels and Demons and that motivated me to branch out into a few similar titles, like The Rule of Four. It wasn't much, and mostly just leisurely reading during the summers, but it marks the period of time between my pre-college reading days and when I really picked reading back up my final year in college. 
4. Stephanie Meyer's Twilight 
   I am not sure how I feel presently about this series, having read many books since I read this series, but truth be told, this series jumpstarted my present day reading habits. I went to see the Twilight movie when I came home for Thanksgiving break my senior year of college and right after the movie I stopped at B&N, bought a box set of the series, and proceeded to power read through all 4 books over the remainder of the weekend. It was unhealthy. I was obsessed. But it stirred a hunger in me for more and I went back to school with a new kindle purchase and a renewed love of reading. 
5. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games
   Now, although I read Twilight before The Hunger Games, Twilight wasn't the series from which my love of YA was born out of. In fact, I read mostly Adult fantasy after Twilight (Robert Jordan's A Wheel of Time and George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire specifically). Instead, that honor goes to The Hunger Games series. I listened to this series back to back sometime in the Fall of 2011 and since then have read predominately young adult. I've never looked back. I still read adult fiction here and there, but I love this genre so much, and for the foreseeable future, I'm not really interested in anything else. 

Ashley's Top Five

1. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series
This actually came after the books below but it was an instant classic in my house. It really continued and fueled my love of reading through high school and into college.  
2. Gordon Korman's No Coins Please
Out of all the books I read in Elementary school, this is one that just has always stuck with me. We read it as a class in my 5th grade English class and I thought it was just a truly fantastic book. It really made me love to listen to books read out loud again.
3. Any of the Children's Great Illustrated Classics
To this day, my parent's still have a shelf of those classic illustrated hardback books.  I remember growing up reading Dracula, Great Expectations, Moby Dick and so many more.  
4. Most of Roald Dahl's books
Matilda, James & The Giant Peach, The Witches, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and more.  I just devoured all of his Roald Dahl's children books.  Just the other day I was in Costco and saw a box set and just had the impulse to buy it (though I didn't :( ) just because I remembering growing up reading them over and over. 
5. Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends
Again, another instant classic for me.  I know most of my top 5 are not young adult books but when I sat and thought about books that really started my reading journey these were the books that came to me instantly, these were the books that remind me how much I love to read and that I have always been a reader.  

What are your top ten?