This article presents an interview with Don Holdaway, early childhood educator and originator of "shared book experience." The article first provides a brief summary of themes embodied in Holdaway's first book, "The Foundations of Literacy." It then presents the interview with Holdaway, discussing literacy learning, big books, and Holdaway's acquisition model of learning. The interview also touches on the importance of children becoming risk takers if they are to enter into the problem solving behavior which learning to read entails, and discusses the need for children to be helped to develop self-correction or self-regulatory behaviors, their most important resource in becoming autonomous literacy learners. (SR)