Chris Riddell Quotes

What I would like to do is make sure every primary school child has a library card, so where parents don't get their children library cards, we'll see if we can get schools to step in and make sure that every child has one.

Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.

This is what I believe is most important: getting good books into the hands of kids - books that will make them want to say, 'Wow, that was great. Give me another one to read.'

Unfortunately, a lot of kids don't read anymore. I don't know what we can do about that.

More people should use their library.

Anything that encourages a boy to open a book, in a world of more violent and therefore more compelling video games, is something I'm going to pay for.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too.

I think kids will read more good books than we can possibly produce.

The fact is that our kids aren't reading books - or frankly, much of anything lately. Schools are under funded, some schools even closing their libraries. Parents have to realize that it's their job, and not the school's job, to get kids into the habit of reading for fun.

I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books.

I have a passion for libraries. They are potentially real community centers.

Let's face it: Most of us don't realize it, but we are failing our kids as reading role models. The best role models are in the home: brothers, fathers, grandfathers; mothers, sisters, grandmothers. Moms and dads, it's important that your kids see you reading. Not just books - reading the newspaper is good, too.

School librarians play such an enormous role in bringing children to books they are going to enjoy. It's a magic alchemy when that works.

I haven't been very enthusiastic about the commercialization of children's literature. Kids should borrow books from the library and not necessarily be buying them.

I'm a voice for children's books and children's reading.

If a child wants to read 'Twilight' over Middlemarch, they should be encouraged - the important thing is to get them reading in the first place.

I love the fact that 'Flowers for Algernon' is doing its part to get people reading.

I don't think the problem is that people don't read enough mystery books, but that people don't read.

I believe we should spend less time worrying about the quantity of books children read and more time introducing them to quality books that will turn them on to the joy of reading and turn them into lifelong readers.

Of course I always like going to bookstores, but at stores, you're mostly meeting kids who are already into reading.

I got my first library card, for Hendon Library in north London, when I was two years old.

I'd love to see more middle and high school teachers who are not teaching English develop classroom libraries. Our message to kids should be that reading is for everyone.

I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.

I don't really care how people read. I care if people read.