Beginning a new school year can be a daunting task for any teacher. This book, the work of an experienced teacher, advances the Overnight Book Program as the core of the literacy curriculum. According to the book, everything developing readers and writers need to understand literacy can be learned easily and joyfully by taking books home to share with their families and returning to school the next day to participate in a range of engaging activities. The book contends that by sending a book home nightly with each student, the teacher can develop a cornerstone for teaching that encompasses care and value for books, responsibility, and working together to learn, as well as traditional curricular areas of phonemic awareness, language and vocabulary development, and comprehension. It emphasizes humor and innovation throughout, offering specific methods that promote joyful learning, creativity, integrated learning, and making connections. The book is divided into the following chapters: (1) Getting Started on the First Day of School; (2) Discovering the Ticket to Literacy--Books!; (3) Managing an Overnight Book Program; (4) Fostering Successful Literacy; (5) Imaging the Story; (6) Leaping into Literacy through Pictures and Photographs; (7) Making Sense of Text through Creative Responses and Literacy Centers; (8) Retelling Stories; and (9) Writing Our Way. (Contains an approximate 300-item list of reading resources. Appendixes contain information on school book clubs, sources of classroom material, instructions for making an 8-page booklet, instructions for making a poetry cube, and a "Pattern for Puppet Theater Opening.") (NKA)