We had no idea whom we'd meet on those wonderful nights. Perhaps we'd meet Tom Sawyer at the half-painted fence or Heidi in the Swiss Alps. It allows children to experience the pleasures of reading. It's an alternative to mindless television viewing. Children learn new information.
Good grammar is modeled.
It doesn't cost anything. Children read a broader variety of books than they would choose on their own. Children experience richly textured lives outside their own experiences. Vocabularies are enriched and expanded. The English language is spoken in a manner distinctly different from that heard on television.