Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves.

I try to teach my students that books are a mirror, reflecting their own lives, and a window, giving them a peek into someone else's.

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.

Students will read if we give them the books, the time, and the enthusiastic encouragement to do so. If we make them wait for the one unit a year in which they are allowed to choose their own books and become readers, they may never read at all. To keep our students reading, we have to let them.

Students need to make their own choices about reading material and writing topics.

If you don't read, I don't know how to communicate with you...I can never express who I am in my own words as powerfully as my books can.

Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters - the saints and the sinners, real or imagined - reading shows you how to be a better human being.