151 Children Reading Quotes

Following is our list of children reading quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about children's love of reading.

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Famous Children Reading Quotes

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

Children reinvent your world for you. — Susan Sarandon

Children who are read to learn two things: First, that reading is worthwhile, and second, that they are worthwhile. — Laura Bush

Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read. — Marilyn Jager Adams

These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country. — Harry Belafonte

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift. — Kate DiCamillo

Receive the children in reverence, educate them in love, and send them forth in freedom. — Rudolf Steiner

Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. — Maria Montessori

Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted. — Dr. Seuss

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are. — Desmond Tutu

Children should study hard, firm up their ideals and convictions, and develop strong bodies and minds to prepare for realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. — Xi Jinping

A children's book is the perfect place where young readers can understand the world because they can take a deep breath and look at it and imagine and contemplate while they're looking at. — Jan Brett

With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own. — Beverly Cleary

Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future. — John F. Kennedy

Children should enjoy the few years they have just being a kid. — Dwayne Hickman

Short Children Reading Quotes

  • There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all. — Jackie Kennedy
  • Reading to kids is to ordinary reading what jazz is to a string quartet. — Sean Wilentz
  • Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. — John Adams
  • Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults. — Abraham Lincoln
  • Enter into children's play and you will find the place where their minds, hearts, and souls meet. — Virginia Axline
  • What a pity every child couldn't learn to read under a willow tree. — Elizabeth George Speare

Top 10 Children Reading Quotes

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. — Albert Einstein

Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything. — George Carlin

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live. — Gustave Flaubert

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. — Keith Richards

Experts say that if children can't read by the end of the fifth grade, they lose self-confidence and self-esteem, making them more likely to enter the juvenile justice system. — Dirk Kempthorne

I hope children will be happy with the books I've written, and go on to be readers all of their lives. — Beverly Cleary

My alma mater was books, a good library. — Malcolm X

When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate. — Mem Fox

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. — Frederick Douglass

Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods. — Neil Postman

Children reading quote Don't just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to questio
Don't just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.

Children's Reading Quotes

The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are. — Ludwig van Beethoven

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. It isn’t achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor by the adult who’s reading aloud—it’s the relationship winding between all three, bringing them together in easy harmony. — Mem Fox

Reading aloud and talking about what we're reading sharpens children's brains. It helps develop their ability to concentrate at length, to solve problems logically, and to express themselves more easily and clearly. — Mem Fox

Children reading quote  There is no such thing as a child who hates to read. There are only children who have not found the
There is no such thing as a child who hates to read. There are only children who have not found the right book.

Reading to children at night, responding to their smiles with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them - all of these further a child's brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months. — T. Berry Brazelton

When I was a child I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I loved losing myself in colourful and dramatic stories - and my absolute favourite was 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.' Everything about it electrified me, and when I re-read Roald Dahl's books as an adult it surprised me. — David Walliams

A book can change the world... Every book a child reads creates new neurons in that child's brain. — Jackie French

Children reading quote Children who read, become adults who think.
Children who read, become adults who think.

The more you read, the more things you will know. — Dr. Seuss

I read one psychologist's theory that said, "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday? — Erma Bombeck

I don't want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read. — Astrid Lindgren

One fish Two fish Red fish Blue fish! — Dr. Seuss

Children's Love Of Reading Quotes

Well meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading - do not discourage children from reading because you feel they're reading the wrong thing. There is no such thing as the wrong thing to be reading and no bad fiction for kids. — Neil Gaiman

I always loved reading. Growing up, my favorite book was 'A Child's Garden of Verses,' by Robert Louis Stevenson. — Francine Pascal

I read Butterfly’s Child in one day, totally hooked. It is a captivating novel of love, guilt, sin, justice—and how all these things are, in time, transformed surprisingly and inevitably. — Josephine Humphreys

Children reading quote If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.

I love to read about anger. A "feel bad" book always makes me feel good. And no other novel in the history of literature is more depressing than Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children. — John Waters

Children's Author Quotes

The scars left from the child's defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis. — Erich Fromm

In all teaching there must be a fusion of authority as an adult providing a stable framework for the children in one's care, and humility as another human being ready to educate an equal who may turn out to be a superior. — Yehudi Menuhin

Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write. — Lee Child

Children reading quote Children are made readers in the laps of their parents
Children are made readers in the laps of their parents

I’m one of those very lucky people who absolutely love what they do for a living. There is no career better suited to my eccentricities, strengths, and passions than that of a children’s book author. — Mary Pope Osborne

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few. — Debbie Macomber

The work of one author or artist may stimulate another author or artist to push the edge, to take the risk, to go where the field hasn't gone before. The result -very exciting children's literature and art ... exciting both for the professional and for the intended audience, the children. — Sayings

The greatest reward for a children's author is in knowing that our efforts might stir the minds and hearts of young readers with a vision and wonder of the world and themselves that may be new to them or reveal something already familiar in new and enlightening ways. — Charles Ghigna

Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel acontinuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable. — Marge M. Kennedy

You have to write the book that wants to be written. — Madeleine L'Engle

I love to talk with children. I try to visit schools but it's hard for me to travel when I'm trying to write. Some authors are able to do both. — Judy Blume

My Child Loves To Read Quotes

As a child, I loved to read books. The library was a window to the world, a pathway to worlds and people far from my neighborhood in Philadelphia. — Ed Bradley

Elephants are my favourite creatures and have been since I was a boy and my mother read Kipling's The Elephant's Child to me. It was loving elephants so much that made we want to write my own story with an elephant at the centre and its bond with a child. — Michael Morpurgo

We give scholarships to high school kids and a new library of books to every preschool child in the county where I was born. I didn't have books at home so I did all my reading at school. I love books and I believe that helping kids to read gives them a great start in life. — Dolly Parton

I have loved to cook since I was a child in my mother's kitchen. If I don't have time to cook, I'll just read a cookbook. — Kamala Harris

What Are Quotes

I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. - Roy Croft

I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. — Roy Croft

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. — Albert Schweitzer

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. — Jean Piaget

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. — John Wooden

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. — Martin Luther King

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. - Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. — Malcolm Stevenson Forbes

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow. — William Shakespeare

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. — Winston Churchill

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. — Mahatma Gandhi

Reading Books To Children Quotes

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go. — Dr. Seuss

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was free. — Kirk Douglas

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. — Charles Baudelaire

As the child approaches a new text he is entitled to an introduction so that when he reads, the gist of the... story can provide some guide for a fluent reading. — Marie Clay

A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY. — Roald Dahl

You must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. — Confucius

As parents, the most important thing we can do is read to our children early and often. Reading is the path to success in school and life. When children learn to love books, they learn to love learning. — Laura Bush

This year, more people will use cocaine than will read a book to their children. — Steve Carell

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul. — Matthew Kelly

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. — Katherine Paterson

Reading For Kids Quotes

I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp. — J. K. Rowling

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. — Francis Bacon

Decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. — Anna Quindlen

Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. — Harry S. Truman

Name the book that made the biggest impression on you. I bet you read it before you hit puberty. In the time I've got left, I intend to write artistic books - for kids - because they're still open to new ideas. — Gary Paulsen

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. — Roald Dahl

Any kid that feels like they don't have any kind of future, whether they're on a street corner in Harlem or in a little town in Kansas where nothing happens, it's all out there for them. They can do whatever they dream or wish or see on television, or read about in the papers. — James Brolin

Love of books is the best of all. — Jackie Kennedy

I've been interested in cartooning all my life. I read the comics as a kid, and I did cartoons for high school publications - the newspaper and yearbook and soon. In college, I got interested in political cartooning and did political cartoons. — Bill Watterson

We need to actually teach kids that books aren't like broccoli. You don't have to eat every bit on your plate. It's like secret adult's business. It's the secret we never, ever tell our children. No adult ever read a book because it's good for us. We read because it is fun. — Jackie French

Children Literature Quotes

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. — Roald Dahl

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you. - Roald Dahl

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you. — Roald Dahl

'Oh, yes,' nodded Pollyanna emphatically. 'He said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count 'em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it - some. — Eleanor Porter

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. — Margery Williams

Good children's literature appeals not only to the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. — Roald Dahl

There is no such thing as children’s literature. — N. V. M. Gonzalez

Every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea. — Nicholas D. Kristof

A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy. — Astrid Lindgren

Literacy For Children Quotes

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. - Kofi Annan

Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. — Kofi Annan

One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children. — Carl Sagan

Words are the voice of the heart. — Confucius

So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky. — William James

There is no substitute for books in the life of a child. — Mary Ellen Chase

Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account. — Hugh Mackay

There is only one remedy for ignorance and thoughtlessness, and that is literacy. Millions and millions of children would today stand in no need of sex education or consumer education or anti-racism education or any of those fake educations, if they had had in the first place 'an' education. — Richard Mitchell

People Writing About Children Reading

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary
quotes on reading

49 296
Read quotes by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley
quotes on death, love and god

656 9462
Read quotes by Susan Sarandon

Susan Sarandon
quotes on life, friendship and love

135 453
Read quotes by Laura Bush

Laura Bush
quotes on reading

89 488
Read quotes by Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte
quotes on racism

74 899
Read quotes by Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo
quotes on reading

242 498

More Children Reading Quotes

Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. It is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace that is right for each individual child. Earlier is not better. — Magda Gerber

We learn... 10% of what we read 20% of what we hear 30% of what we see 50% of what we both hear and see 70% of what is discussed 80% of what we experience personally 95% of what we teach to someone else — William Glasser

The people themselves begin to clamour for an education which shall qualify their children for life rather than for earning a living. As a matter of fact, it is the man who has read and thought on many subjects who is, with the necessary training, the most capable whether in handling tools, drawing plans, or keeping books. — Charlotte Mason

You have to convince the adults that if a child is to learn his culture, he or she will have to see his mother and father reading about it, and explaining it to him. Then it gets a legitimacy it otherwise would never have. Until then, his learning is limited. — John Henrik Clarke

If I’m running a grade school curriculum for children, I would probably optimize happiness, nutrition, diet, exercise, How do you build good habits?, How do you break bad habits?, How do you have good relationships?, How do you find your spouse?, meditation, How do you build basic skills, not memorize lots of facts?, What kinds of books should you read? — Naval Ravikant

No player in the NBA was born wanting to play basketball. The desire to play ball or to read must be planted. The last 25 years of research show that reading aloud to a child is the oldest, cheapest and must successful method of instilling that desire. Shooting baskets with a child creates a basketball player; reading to a child creates a reader. — Jim Trelease

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. — Mem Fox

Literacy is much more than an educational priority - it is the ultimate investment in the future and the first step towards all the new forms of literacy required in the twenty-first century. We wish to see a century where every child is able to read and to use this skill to gain autonomy. — Irina Bokova

Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning. — David Elkind

Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I'd try to read my lessons, and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter. — James Earl Jones

Children read to learn - even when they are reading fantasy, nonsense, light verse, comics or the copy on cereal packets, they are expanding their minds all the time, enlarging their vocabulary, making discoveries - it is all new to them. — Joan Aiken

If every parent understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent- and every adult caring for a child-read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in our lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation. — Mem Fox

A book consists of two layers: on top, the readable layer ... and underneath, a layer that was inaccessible. You only sense its existence in a moment of distraction from the literal reading, the way you see childhood through a child. It would take forever to tell what you see, and it would be pointless. — Marguerite Duras

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words. — Betty Smith

Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear. — Judy Blume

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian “improving” literature. You’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant. — Neil Gaiman

Reading aloud is the best advertisement because it works. It allows a child to sample the delights of reading and conditions him to believe that reading is a pleasureful experience, not a painful or boring one. — Jim Trelease

I am an author-illustrator of children's books - and yet - I must confess I don't do the books for the kids. When I'm working on a book I'm somewhere else - at the circus - or a rustic old farm - or deep in a forest - with no thought of who might read the book or what age group it would appeal to. I write them so I can illustrate them. — Bill Peet

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