Taylor Swift encourages kids to read
Taylor read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and performed some songs to urge kids to read at the “Read Now! with Taylor Swift” event.
Taylor Swift tells kids: Read for a better life
NEW YORK – Studying hard can bring sweet rewards, like screaming “We love you!” to Taylor Swift from seats that match the color of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
The Grammy Award-winning superstar stopped by the headquarters of Scholastic Inc. on Wednesday and chatted and performed at the publisher’s downstairs auditorium, where about 200 grade-schoolers and middle-schoolers, most of them girls, had received a break from class to see Swift talk about reading and writing. The children had been selected by their schools because of improvement in their reading scores.
“I think that smart kids are the coolest kids,” Swift, wearing a dark-blue cotton dress with red and white flowers and two-tone high heel shoes, said to much delight as she was interviewed on stage by “America’s Got Talent” host Nick Cannon.
The 20-year-old singer-songwriter, who has been busy promoting her new CD, “Speak Now,” shared songwriting tips (imagine you’re writing a letter, she advised), childhood reading memories and repeated plugs for books as a path to a better life.
“(Without books) You can let little things pass you by, little details,” she said. “Like, say you’re driving down the road and there’s just this really beautiful autumn tree and it has these gorgeous orange leaves. You might just let that pass you by if you have never read books that describe how beautiful they are, from somebody else’s perspective.”
Swift did more than talk. She sang a few lines from one of her favorite songs, Faith Hill’s “This Kiss,” and was joined by her band at the end to perform her new single, “Mine.”