The best help adults can give kids is to let them read what gives them pleasure or desired information. Kids will read, if the material meets their needs. (Of course, adults must read to their children every day until the child takes the book and says, "Let me do it.")

In 2008, Read to Your Children

TWENTY MINUTES A DAY
 By Richard Peck

Read to your children
Twenty minutes a day;
You have the time,
And so do they.
Read while the laundry is in the machine;
Read while the dinner cooks;
Tuck a child in the crook of your arm
And reach for the library books.
Hide the remote,
Let the computer games cool,
For one day your children will be off to school:
Remedial? Gifted? You have the choice;
Let them hear the first tales
In the sound of your voice.
Read in the morning;
Read over noon;
Read by the light of
Goodnight Moon.
Turn the pages together,
Sitting close as you'll fit,
Till a small voice beside you says,
Hey, don't quit.

Richard Peck, a sterling fellow with an outstanding sense of humor, gave permission for this poem to be printed here, as a gift to you.

As a gift to your children, introduce anyone 9 and over to Peck's outstanding books. His writing is as good as it gets.

You might begin with A Long Way from Chicago, (Newbery Honor) and its sequel, A Year Down Yonder (Newbery Winner). Both of these warm-hearted, humorous books are set in small-town Indiana, beginning in 1929-1931. Just talking about them makes me want to re-read them both!!

My Favorite Readers

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Updated: May 28, 2008