JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- It's a creepy crawler challenge that has students shutting off the TV and opening up a book.

The principal of Loretto Elementary School wants his students to be bookworms just like him, and he'll go to great lengths to make that happen.

"The goal for them is to be able to give me, since I'm a bookworm, a worm bath," principal Christopher Begley said.

Begley will cover himself in live worms if the students at his school meet his ambitious reading challenge.

He's asking all 1,200 students to read a total of 135,000 books by the end of the school year.

The number of books would be the equivalent of about what's in five of the school's libraries. These bookworms have a lot of reading to do.

If you do the math, every student has to get through 113 books.

"We wanted something where we could embarrass him but yet, it would be fun for the kids," said Sharon Rosenbloom, a teacher at the school who came up with the idea.

She's a firm believer that avid readers are better students and test takers.

Begley hopes they'll make the connection between reading great literature and writing well.

"We all know that to go to the next level, whether it's to be successful in high school or in college, you really have to be able to communicate in writing," Begley said.

He said now teachers have to engage students no matter what it takes.

"The thing that I believe that all principles and educators fight with is we have to be as entertaining as their computer games," Begley said.

To prove his point, bathing in worms won't be the zaniest thing he's done in the name of education.

"I've done everything from kissed a live pig to shaved my head to had pies in my face," Begley said.

After burrowing through thousands of books, Begley hopes his bookworms will develop a life-long love of reading.

All this reading is likely to keep Loretto Elementary an A school for the ninth consecutive year.