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"  Taye Diggs first caught our eye when he helped Stella get her groove back. He plays a decidedly less-groovy dude alongside Paula Patton in this month&amp;#039;s Baggage Claim. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s fun to play a jerk!&amp;quot; says Taye with a laugh. He sure isn&amp;#039;t a jerk in real life: The kids&amp;#039; book author of the so-sweet Chocolate Me! is working with Scholastic and Kellogg&amp;#039;s to get free books into your kids&amp;#039; hands every month\u2014and into needy schools. Taye told us why being a present, active dad isn&amp;#039;t just about throwing a football around. When my 3-year-old son Walker pulls out The Jungle Book for the thousandth time, he&amp;#039;s saying, &amp;quot;I know it&amp;#039;s date night for you and Mommy, but we have to get this done first.&amp;quot; And I love it. One of my favorite things to do with Walker is sit down and having story time\u2014no offense to technology\u2014with an actual book. Growing up, my mother always made sure that we had up-to-date library cards and that we were members of the rolling library. When I became a children&amp;#039;s book author, I was troubled to learn that up to two-thirds of kids in poverty don&amp;#039;t have access to books. I hate when people speak like this\u2014but I literally don&amp;#039;t know where I would be today without books.  Reading with Walker, I can actually see how it&amp;#039;s changing him. Over time, I&amp;#039;ve noticed how he listens and applies the information that is being given to him. He&amp;#039;s learning, not just repeating. Right now everything is all about dinosaurs, and we&amp;#039;re re-reading those same books again and again. It&amp;#039;s very boring for me and my wife, Idina [Menzel]\u2014but it&amp;#039;s great for him. The books go over what each dinosaur does, all the different types\u2014herbivore, carnivore, omnivore\u2014and what period they&amp;#039;re from. He knows his stuff! We can&amp;#039;t get away with trying to speed up a story by skipping a page or even a line. And when he uses his own imagination and makes up his own stories, I can tell that everything we&amp;#039;re reading is sinking in. Not just the facts, but the structure of a story and the syntax of words.  Reading a story takes the same amount of time as watching a television program, and it excites Idina and me that Walker would rather read and share an interest with us. Scholastic and Kellogg&amp;#039;s are giving away 200,000 free books during the school year! Find out how to get involved and get some free reads at scholastic.com/minimissions. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/friends-family/news/a16115/taye-diggs-walker-author/>