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The article presents a study which shows that schools serving urban youth in the U.S. face a growing literacy crisis. According to the study, 70 percent of eighth graders attending urban middle schools had reading comprehension below grade level. Thus, researchers suggest that leisure reading can support the literacy development of these students.

The article focuses on how parent-child storytime can be beneficial to teenage children and how libraries can organize read aloud sessions. Topics discussed include the opportunity for older children to build their vocabulary and knowledge base as well as the chance for even greater bonding between parent and child. The need for libraries to build a book display that contains titles for read aloud and the demonstration of a read aloud of an interesting excerpt are then mentioned.