"On Reading Books to Children: Parents and Teachers" brings together research on adult book reading to children. The authors, drawn from around the world, are key researchers and eminent scholars from the fields of reading and literacy, child language, speech pathology, and psychology, representing multiple perspectives within these disciplines. Chapters on the effects and limitations of book sharing are integrated with chapters which discuss promising programmes on storybook research. The reality of reading to children is more complex than it appears on the surface. The authors discuss some effects of and suggestions for reading to children that have emerged from the research. The ideas set forth in this volume should stimulate fresh lines of research on the effects of storybook reading, as well as refinements of methods, yielding findings that enrich our understanding of this important arena of literacy development.