Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.

If we all understood we can learn from both older and younger people, then we'd have a better world.

Students read for tests and because their parents ask them to, but I think it's very important to tell children that you can read for fun, too, and to understand human spirit. It builds empathy.

Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to raising awareness about world hunger.

I would say that kids are great in many ways, because I think that we are less hampered when it comes to 'this costs too much' or 'that's impossible.'

The fact that a baby can be born today and condemned to a life of hardship, struggle, and discrimination simply because of sex is enraging.

Let's abolish the term 'childish' because adults normally cause the largest problems.