Some of my favorite books, as odd as it may sound, are children’s books.

Despite the fact that I’m in college, I still make a habit of revisiting favorite childhood characters: Eloise, Madeline and every literary figure from Andrew Clements’ books are some of the best in English literature.

The fresh plots and breezy pace of children’s literature is something that grown-ups would do well to revisit once in a while. After all, who can resist Eloise’s “sklonking and sklathing and skibbling,” or the revolution that Nicholas Allen started once he called a pen “frindle?” Not to mention classic examples of books that got kids reading, such as Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, children’s books are fixtures of every self-respecting bookworm’s shelf.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so. The Codex Group, a literary publishing organization, released a 2010 study that 47 percent of 18 to 24-year-old women categorized their choice of literature as “young adult,” compared to the 24 percent of men that did.

Adults aren’t the only ones who benefit from reading children’s books. Studies show that adults who read kid’s books in front of their children are more likely to raise kids who can read well ”” which in turn improves the child’s chances of doing well in school, scoring high on the SATs and being ready for college.

The subject of adults reading children’s books, however immature, even made its way into the New York Times in 2010. Acclaimed author and New York Times columist Pamela Paul implemented an idea she had for a children’s book club for adults. Kidlit, which she started in 2006, attracted high-profile figures in the literary industry, including Gretchen Rubin, former clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and Amy Zilliax, who has a Ph.D. in English.

Steven J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, coauthors of “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” wrote in a USA Today editorial in 2005 that kids with at least 50 children’s books at home score around five percentile points higher than kids who don’t have books. Similarly, children with 100 books score five points higher than the child with 50 books. From my own observations, the smartest kids I know here at Fresno State were read to a lot as little kids.

So what do all these fancy studies on kid’s books mean for us college students? It goes without saying that the more we read, the smarter we are. But during breaks between reading those exciting textbooks, we would all do well to chill out a little bit and read something that is a bit below our reading level ”” go pick up your favorite children’s book.