The Monsters are Due on Maple Street from Roxanne

I read this short story as a middle-school student – it was part of our larger English Literature textbook. I found out much later that the story was actually based on a Twilight Zone TV episode, which I didn’t get to see until I was an adult. But the short story impressed me because it was the first time that I ever understood that words could have a dual meaning in writing. There was the basic story – aliens from outer space taking over a neighborhood in America. But the deeper meaning, which I understood immediately, even as an 11-year-old, was the danger of making assumptions about the behavior of other people without first knowing all the facts. I still remember the awe I felt, a moment of “Wow, I got this!” regarding the deeper meaning of this short story.