I think that's part of it too; I wasn't really looking for messages in stories, just stories themselves. I know other people who talk about reading a lot of the same books I did and getting the message, for instance, that girls couldn't go on adventures, but I never got that message, oddly enough. When I went to make up my own stories, they always had girls as protagonists, but it wasn't until much later--high school at least--that I thought to look back and think about what the stories were saying.