Singer promotes literacy in kids

Personal: Sara Hickman is a country/folk singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas, famous for her 1990 Top 10 hit "I Couldn't Help Myself."

She has sat on the board of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, has won the prestigious Humana Women Helping Woman Award for her contributions for Safe Place, Habitat for Humanity, House the Homeless, the Race for the Cure and has raised money for the Hill Country Youth Ranch in Ingram, Texas.

Hickman is a full-time mother who has two daughters, Lily, 6, and ioLana, 2, and serves as the spokeswoman for Half Price Books, an national organization that promotes literacy.

Youth entertainment: "When I was growing up, I loved the 'Trixie Belden' books," Hickman said. "In fact I wanted to be Trixie. I wanted to cut my hair like hers and wanted everyone to call me Trixie. I used to wear a badge that said, 'Don't call me Sara. Call me Trixie.' "

But children's mysteries, including Alfred Hitchcock's "Three Investigators" series, weren't enough for Hickman's insatiable thirst for words and knowledge. "Aside from Trixie, I loved reading the encyclopedia. I would grab a volume and just read all the entries. I was interested in what was going on in the world."

Grown-up selections: These days, Hickman, who has a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of North Texas, reads a lot of satire and social commentary, works such as Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation" and Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Interpreter of Maladies: Stories of Bengal, Boston and Beyond," a collection of works about Indian and American cultures.

"I would encourage everyone to read the Lahiri book," Hickman said. "It is wonderful."

With all her humanitarian, musical and volunteer work, Hickman still puts her children first.

Art, music and reading are a high priority in her household, and Hickman, along with husband Lance Schriner, make sure all the art supplies and books are within their children's reach.

Together time: "The No. 1 book in our family is 'The Lomax' by Dr. Seuss," Hickman said. "And I've quite a bit of bilingual books that we read together. We have a hundred million books that are scattered all over our house."