It's the popular thing to do, as evidenced by Reading Is Fundamental* supporters Whoopie Goldberg, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bush, Bill Gates, Jamie Lee Curtis, Neil Armstrong, Deborah Norville, Will Smith, Regis Philbin, and Big Bird, to name a few.

Anyone who spends time with babies and toddlers shares in their wonder as they discover and explore new things about the world around them.  The same is true for readers of any age; there is no such thing as being too old, too rich, too well-known, too busy to learn and strengthen minds through books.

Steve Burns, actor and host of Nickelodeon's popular "Blue's Clues," tells how, as a young child in second grade, his class was taken to the library and told to choose a book.  For free, no strings attached.

"I'll never forget how exciting it was to examine each one, opening them, admiring, the covers, smelling the pages.  For the first time, I could allow my imagination to take the lead – an existence very different from what I was experiencing with television.  I didn't know mental effort could be such fun.  I was hooked."

Many celebrities enjoy reading so much, they have written their own books and poems to pass on to their children and share with their fans.  Whatever their reading preferences, they all agree on one thing: start early, and make reading a natural, fun-damental part of your family's everyday life.