Rosemary Well's advice for kids:

"Don't watch much TV. If you want to be a writer you have to read. If you want to draw or you want to write, please don't draw or write anything that comes from the television. It should come from your life that you know."

"The more you turn off the TV, the better off you'll be. In order to be a writer, you have to be able to imagine things. TV kills imagination."

"Read and read and read. Write and write. Just do it. Write letters, write articles for the school newspaper."

"It's like anything else. You have to stay in shape and you have to practice."

FIVE POINTS ON READING FROM ROSEMARY WELLS

* Children who read succeed. The most significant part of a child's mental growth between the ages of three and seven is the ability to imagine. Books boost imagination. Our popular television culture degrades imagination.

* TV and video are now our national babysitters. But a young child's growing mind needs active play and live conversation. Television puts a child into what neurologists call the passive Alpha state. A child cannot learn from screens because programs are meant to sell products not to teach.

* Much like the first news about tobacco and cholesterol, early studies now link overdoses of TV, video games and pop music with learning disabilities, attention deficiency, speech defects and aggressive behavior.

* Screen watching makes a child a follower and a consumer. Books exist because of the power of human ideas. Readers are leaders and producers.

* After a tiring day nothing is more restful than reading with a child on your lap. Reading aloud offers a world of privacy, dignity, and love to both of you.