Drop Everything and Read Day

Buried on page 6D in the Life section of today's USA Today there was a small story about actress Emma Roberts, star of Nickelodean's Unfabulous TV program. Ms. Roberts is the event spokeswoman for "National Drop Everything and Read Day" which is today -- April 12, 2007.

She is quoted as saying -- "Kids today have so much technology (computers, Sidekicks, Blackberries, etc. - which I love by the way!) that I think it is important to encourage them to read and spend quality time with their families." The article goes on to say that Ms. Roberts reads at least one book a week which makes me jealous since it takes me about two weeks per book!!

Since I love books (and technology like blogs of course) I love the concept of "Drop Everything and Read Day" but I have to point out that a newspaper dedicated to literacy should not bury such a news story like USA Today did today. Let's get such projects mentioned on the front page so more people are likely to notice the story.

Keep reading,
Todd

Statistics

Yes I have to admit it -- I find some of USA Today's "Snapshots" bar charts informative sometimes including these recent versions focused on reading in the USA:

• Leisure Activities (percentage of adults who participated at least once in the previous 12 months) -- 35% cited "Reading Books" while the number one choice was "Dining Out" with 48% of adults, and
• Percentage of children ages 3 to 5 who were read to every day in the previous week by a family member -- 52.8% in 1993 and 60.3% in 2005

Now this is rather encouraging!! Over 1/3 of American adults are reading books regularly and 60% of young American children have a family member reading to them. There is always room for improvement but these are good results especially since "book reading " must compete with 24 hour shopping, the 500 TV channel world, computer games, Internet surfing, and MP3 listening just to name a few alternative uses of our leisure time.

Go to bed early and read,

Todd