When Ms. Molly Ward became Mayor of Hampton, VA, she asked that a special effort be made to improve the reading skills of our children.  Thus, Hampton's Mayors Book Club was created in 2008.  Now, every month during the school year, almost 100 community leaders and volunteers read the Book-of-the-Month to more than 4,000 students in 205 Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grade public and private classrooms throughout the city.  Children in Pre-K are each given a copy of the book to keep and take home.  Copies of the book are also placed in each of the classrooms and each school library collection to be available to the older children.  The Mayor's Book Club ran with great success for three years when the Kiwanis Club of Young Professionals in Newport News, a club comprised mostly of teachers working in Hampton's neighboring town, learned of the program, evaluated it's success and potential and proposed to the newly elected mayor of Newport News, McKinley Price, that a similar program be introduced into the schools in that city.  Rather than "reinventing the wheel", Mayor Price joined with Mayor Ward to sponsor the joint Hampton-Newport News Mayors' Book Club which began in October 2011.  The combined Mayors' Book Club now serves 7,000 students in 350 classrooms and over 3,000 copies of the Book-of-the-Month are distributed.  Reading is a critical skill and has become a core value in our two cities.