Every week it happens. A woman comes in with a couple of boys and says to me in a conspiratorial voice, "I just can't get them interested in reading. Can you suggest anything?"

I do my best: "Have you tried the history section?" or "We have some new books on tornados" or "Books about trains are at 625.1", but 5 times out of 7, I hear, "Oh, no, not those. I mean real books." "You mean fiction," I reply.

She agrees that, yes, those are real books. And so off we go to find out if Captain Underpants is available. I mean, if a kid is 10 and doesn't like to read, he's not going to be thrilled by Kipling -- too difficult -- or excited by most of the Newbery books, which are almost all fiction. Some fiction is great for boys -- SF, for instance -- but chances are, that fiction isn't something Mom is going to like, either.

So it's ask the kid what he likes, and sell it to him while also selling it to her on its literary merits. Sometimes I can push in the opposite direction, like pulling a fictional account of the Titanic disaster, and matching it with two or three non-fiction books on the topic, or going in the back way through poetry. ("Isn't this a beautiful rendering of 'Paul Revere's Ride'? Oh, and there are some things over here, on the Battle of Lexington, to help him place the poem in context...") Mostly, though, I argue for non-fiction on its own merits, and also as exercise. "If he doesn't read something, he'll never develop the physical skills he needs to read well. Why not let him read something interesting to him? It can't hurt him..."

So I really relish my opportunities to introduce non-fiction to the very young and their parents. Story Time is a pretty good opportunity to do that, because I control the content. (I control the vertical. I control the horizontal. Bwah ha ha ha ha!!!!) Mostly story books, yes, but there's a golden moment at the beginning in which I have everyone's attention. It's a non-fiction moment. Rainbows. Tree frogs. Pyramids. Bees. And today, the best of all: landing on the moon.

These kids range in age from 3 to 6, though in summer it's more like 2 to 8. I can't stick to non-fiction for 30 minutes. They'd never be able to last. So I start out with Buzz Aldrin's new picture book autobiography, Reaching for the Moon. The story is charming, but I have to skip from episode to episode because it's too long for the younger children.

Then a strange thing happens: all the little boys, the ones who listen, mostly, but sometimes look out the windows, all come down off the benches and away from the windows, and sit right on the floor in front of me.

We move on to Tim Gaffney's Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon (out of print, sadly), a fictional account of a retired astronaut's visit to his grandson, where he tells the story of his moon landing in great (and accurate) detail, as the child imagines he's right there with his grandpa.

I also have a silver puppet shaped a little like a space capsule, with a NASA insignia on the front. After a little struggle with my fingers, we count down and blast off with the puppet. We send it into orbit around the moon, and then we pretend that the capsule is the lander. Once it settles on the surface of Reaching for the Moon, I pop open the top and push up one finger. A silver astronaut with a gold visor on his helmet emerges and says, "That's one small step for ...man, one giant leap for mankind." And then the second astronaut comes out and says, "Magnificent desolation!" The kids know that one is Buzz because they just heard him say that in his story.

After that, it's back to Earth for I'll See You When the Moon Is Full by Susi Gregg Fowler, in which a little boy and his dad figure out a way to use the moon's phases to make the time when Dad is away pass more quickly. Of course, we learn about the moon's phases a little.

And to close, because there has to be something splashy and fun to conclude, Two Cool Cows, Toby Speed's jazz poem about Millie and Maude, two cool cows from the Huckabuck farm, who jump to the moon to graze on its other side. I put on my sunglasses and snap my fingers through the whole thing. "Kate plays the fiddle / Little Doug laughs / And Daisy? She runs off with Spoon! Yeah!"

For their activity, the little project they take home, we put together a moon phase dial with two pieces of black contruction paper, a yellow circle for the moon, a paper fastener (so it can turn) and some self-adhesive foil stars to put wherever they want. The big challenge in the following directions department: paste the moon inside the white circle, or the machine won't work. But the boys get it, and the girls get it. A couple learn to snap their fingers. And several go home to watch the shuttle launch, which sadly for them was postponed.

One of the moms asked afterwards, "How did you get them to stay so still and listen to all that?" "It's simple," I said, "I like it, I showed them I like it, and I expected them to like it too. They know." And they do. Grandpa always said never to read what you don't like if you can help it -- life being too short -- and never ever read anything you don't like aloud to children. They lack sophistication, but they know lots of stuff. The most important thing they know is what's real. Play to that, and they will give you anything.