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What I want is to try and get across the idea that reading for pleasure is so beneficial. And turn children on who have maybe been switched off reading or never found a love of it in the first place.

Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account.

Students read for tests and because their parents ask them to, but I think it's very important to tell children that you can read for fun, too, and to understand human spirit. It builds empathy.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise.

Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.

We know that reading to children is a crucial step. From the beginning, babies who are read to are exposed to the cadence of language, and school-age children who read at home for 15 minutes a day are exposed to millions of words.

Making reading an enjoyable activity for children is a challenge. So I ensure that I write in a way that is fun for children to read.

I'm a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it's important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you're saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.

Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.