Amid the push to excellence, with its measurement and accountability, it is easy to lose sight of a key ingredient in reading a book - the pleasure it bring us, something too many boil down to a dirty word: FUN.

Reading aloud is the best advertisement because it works. It allows a child to sample the delights of reading and conditions him to believe that reading is a pleasureful experience, not a painful or boring one.

Students who read the most also read the best, achieve the most, and stay in school the longest. Conversely, those who dont read much cannot get better at it.

Every time we read to a child, we're sending a 'pleasure' message to the child's brain. You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure.

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

Neither books nor people have Velcro Sides -- there must be a bonding agent -- someone who attaches child to book.

Common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon--destroying ignorance, poverty and despair before they can destroyus. A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. And a nation that doesn't know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box and the voting booth...The challenge, therefore, is to convince future generations of children that carrying a book is more rewarding than carrying guns.