Railroad buffs will also be invited to a train fair in the Palm House, where hobby shops and model manufacturers will show their wares, and where young visitors can play with toy trains and read storybooks with railway themes.

There Qian was left alone to read storybooks on folklore and historical events, which he would repeat to his cousins upon returning home.

At the Ninth Street School, on the city's skid row, for example, Richard C. Mayfield, who received $400 from the program, has his first- and second-grade students build model space stations and read storybooks in which the moon, sun, planets and stars figure prominently.

The mythological and the technical aspects included in the story also came from Tripathi's habit of reading storybooks on history and ancient technology; he was helped by his father, who is a scientist.

Other illustrations were grotesqueries drawn to amuse children looking at or reading storybooks.

This initiative leads efforts to read storybooks to children in school, clean up parks, paint out graffiti, through a program called GOALS CityPride, coach disabled young people through GOALS Special Sports, visit veterans at local VA hospitals, and pack food for local food distribution centers that support the poor.

It was easy; in fact, it only took ten days or so, and within a couple of months I was able to read storybooks like Living on John's Farm or The White Rabbit.

The trained teachers were instructed to read assigned storybooks to their classrooms for the allotted period of time.