Instead of educating the I.Q., we need to educate the H.Q., the heart quotient, the matters of truth, love, justice, and compassion. There are two ways to do this. One is through the read life experiences and the other is through literature. Literature has the power to take us outside ourselves and returns to ourselves a changed self.

Story is the vehicle we use to make sense of our lives in a world that often defies logic.

No player in the NBA was born wanting to play basketball. The desire to play ball or to read must be planted. The last 25 years of research show that reading aloud to a child is the oldest, cheapest and must successful method of instilling that desire. Shooting baskets with a child creates a basketball player; reading to a child creates a reader.

Readers don't grow in trees. But they are grown-in places where they are fertilized with lots of print, and above all, read to daily.

What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn.

The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four - of secondary importance is to prepare for being five.

Each day millions of children arrive in American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking for a light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a bruised heart or ego.