When choosing a book for a child, the only wrong choice is not to choose. People ask about Golden Books and others that can be picked up at grocery counters and drugstores. If a grandmother picks one up at the drugstore and takes it home to read to her grandson, we think that's great. If a child is excited by a new book added to the grocery basket, we think that's great. It's a step toward reading and a step closer to the library and the opportunity for a child to broaden reading horizons.

Coloring books and sticker books and Little Golden books and low-priced paperbacks can't be treated as a lesser form of experience, because to the beginning reader they can be important books. Price and format can never be trusted as guarantees of the value a book may have to a child.

-- from "Valerie & Walter's Best Books for Children" by Valerie V. Lewis and Walter M. Mayes

Pub Date: 9/06/98