No matter your position or place in life, it is imperative to create opportunities for children so that we can grow up to blow you away.

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.

Make sure that your kids or the kids in your life have an opportunity to share their ideas, and to teach you something about what we know.

My family joke that I'm really a very senior person who accidentally happens to be 11.

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.

Enthusiasm just creates bubbles; it doesn't keep them from popping.

There's no committee that says, 'This is the type of person who can change the world - and you can't.' Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you're going to do it.