Barbara Bush was an

excellent mother. She understood the importance of reading to your children.
I do not say that lightly. Mrs Bush was a woman who used her position as First Lady in order to do good.  If she had encouraged just one other mother or father to read to their child she would have done good. She encouraged thousands upon thousands to do that - and not just in the United States.
I know that from my experience of her. Mrs Bush was a strong supporter of International Literacy Year before she became First Lady.
As I was writing all those old-fashioned snail mail letters asking people to talk to their UN representatives I sometimes got unexpected responses from  unexpected places. People were talking about the idea. It was what I had hoped for.
Someone mentioned the idea to Mrs Bush and then wrote back to me. I can't remember exactly what he said now but it was along the lines of "you have a strong advocate in Mrs Bush. I suggest you write to her directly in the manner you wrote to me".  So I wrote to Mrs Bush at the address he gave me. 
I was not at all certain that the wife of the then Vice President of the United States was going to be interested but the man who was suggesting it was someone who was being very supportive. 
But, I had a response. What is more the letter was not simply a pro-forma response. It came from someone who seemed to be a secretary and it asked some questions. I answered those questions. Mrs Bush used the information I gave her. 
When the year was announced Mrs Bush gave her support to many of the initiatives that grew out of the year. She was an enthusiastic supporter of the "Llama Libraries" - the small "libraries" that are still carried by llamas to remote places in Peru and Bolivia.  She gave her support to the Book Bus initiative which still supplies a mobile library service in countries like Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania. When someone suggested a  book exchange system in Nepal and north-east India she mobilised some support in the United States to get it started.  The far reaching effect of that was shown recently when two young doctors graduated. Their parents, peasants in a remote village in Nepal, had been among the first to benefit from the book exchange.
There were many other projects, big and small, both inside and outside the United States that she supported  by using her position to get people interested in them. She understood the wider value of literacy, that it is not simply about teaching people to read and write. Library closures worried her. She wanted children to read. She wanted them to read fiction as well as non-fiction. 
Mrs Bush may have been a First Lady but she was first of all a mother who read to her children. Encouraging other parents to do the same was a powerful influence for good which is still having a positive impact today.