NEW YORK (AP) — X.J. Kennedy, an award-winning poet, author, translator and educator who schooled millions of students through “The Bedford Reader” and other textbooks and engaged voluntary readers with his children’s stories and intricate, witty verse, has died at age 96. Kennedy died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Peabody, Massachusetts, according to his daughter, Dr. Kate Kennedy. Born Joseph Charles Kennedy, he chose the professional name X.J. Kennedy as a young man to avoid