April 12 is Drop Everything and Read day in honor of author Beverly Cleary's birthday.
In Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona's teacher decides that "Sustained Silent Reading" is just too boring a term, so she invents "DEAR, or Drop Everything And Read." Ramona loves it.
Try it now. Stop reading this blog post and go read a book. Or read a book to your kids. The daughter, age 6, enthusiastically recommends the Ramona series. When I told her that today was "Drop Everything and Read" day her eyes popped out of her head and she said, breathily, "They have that at Ramona's school!"
Reading is magic. OK, time for me to pick up a book.