The author tells the story of a 5th-grade teacher who challenges her class to take on self-identities as readers. Students defined seven characteristics of what it means to be a good reader and considered whether those characteristics applied to them: Good readers read for fun, talk about books, usually finish the book they're reading, can relate to the characters in the book, often choose a specific genre to read, read with few distractions, and read at least two books each month.