Kids across Iowa are hearing a message about the importance of reading books and switching off the television from an unlikely source — the star of a T-V show. Dan Wardell is the host of Iowa Public T-V’s Kids Clubhouse and he’s making his 10th annual trek to libraries across Iowa this summer.

“Ten years, I’ve been on the Reading Road Trip,” Wardell says. “It started with 51 libraries ten years ago and now I’m visiting 75 libraries, the biggest of the big libraries and the smallest of the small libraries all across the state. Just teaching kids to turn their TVs off, go outside and play, use their imaginations, read good books, and eat healthy food.” Wardell said he creates his own tales when he makes his stops.

“One of the cool things they’ve always let me do at IPTV is to write my own stories for these Reading Road Trip events,” he says. “I don’t actually read a book during the events but we incorporate the librarians, we incorporate the kids, we even incorporate the grownups into a super-interactive story time.”

The show will run for ten weeks. Find the full list of all of the stops at the website: http://site.iptv.org/about/iptv-news/iptv-announces-dates-tenth-annual-reading-road-trip

(Radio Iowa)