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.

Exposing students to lots of books and positive reading experiences while building a network of other readers who support each other provides students with tools that last beyond the classroom setting.

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

If we value all readers, we must value all reading.

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.

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.