Failing to graduate a populace that values reading has long-term consequences for everyone.

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.

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.

A classroom atmosphere that promotes reading does not come from the furniture and its placement as much as it comes from the teacher's expectation that students will read.

Our children shouldn't have to wait for adulthood to become wild readers. For many, it will be too late.

When we meet and I discover that we have read and loved the same books, we are instant friends.

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.