Typically, when a parent and a toddler share a picture book, the adult reads and the child listens. But practitioners of a special, research-based technique called dialogic reading are turning that age-old model upside down. Dialogic reading transforms youngsters into storytellers and adults into active listeners, increasing the likelihood that the members of the Goodnight Moon set will become successful, lifelong readers. Librarians can play a key role in teaching this powerful technique to parents and child-care providers. What exactly is dialogic reading? "It's just children and adults having a conversation about a book," says Russ Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Whitehurst should know. While professor of psychology and pediatrics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook during the '90s, he and his colleagues at the Stony Brook Reading and Language Project invented dialogic reading.