To appreciate the present, one must have a knowledge of the past…to know where we go, we must know from where we came… - Pura Belpré

Puerto Rico is a beautiful island, with a culture enriched by old, old stories gained from many people. Traces of this culture are everywhere. And there are still many more story seeds waiting to be planted.

This paper should be filled with statistics, but no statistic can show the joy of a child who runs around the room to tell his friends, "She speaks Spanish. She can help you with your books."

In my opinion, the answer to what makes a reluctant reader is the lack of motivation in the home; non-reading parents, lack of verbal communication, working parents too tired to answer questions, lack of books around the house, and too much dependence on television for entertainment. But the reluctant reader must learn to read, and that is left to the school. The school is not without fault in failing him. Too much stress on pedagogical reading material has left no room for reading for pleasure; in fact it has destroyed any incentive for it. Somewhere on the way, the individuality of the child has been lost in the effort to make of him just "teaching material." Classes that are too large have made matters worse. Lucky is the child from such a group that finds the public library and discovers its picture book or reading hours.