From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   Sorry, I guess it's too late for you to do this now. I am trying to   
   catch up....   
      
   It's the birthday of Beverly Cleary (1916-2021), a very popular (and   
   long-lived!) American author of children's books.   
      
   She wrote a series of books about a little girl named Ramona Quimby, and   
   in one of them (published 1981), when Ramona is 8 years old, her teacher   
   says to the class:   
   "...every day after lunch we are going to sit at our desks and read   
   silently to ourselves any book we choose in the library."   
   And they didn't have to write a report on it!   
   The teacher called this "Drop Everything and Read" (DEAR).   
      
   The "sustained silent reading" was not Cleary's invention, or even based   
   on her own schooldays (though the Wiki article says that she did have   
   problems with reading in the early stages). It was her children who went   
   to schools where it was an established practice.   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Cleary   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)