New Zealand has its first Children's Book Week, and today the whole country was invited to stop and read at the same time.
At exactly 11am today, children around New Zealand were invited to open a book and read together.
Not the same book. Not in the same room. Just the same moment.
It was part of the first New Zealand Children's Book Week, which runs from 15 to 21 August. There are author events, bookshop activities, school parades, competitions, library sessions and a national read-along.
I like the idea of a read-along that nobody can hear.
Somewhere, a Year 2 student was probably sounding out a word one letter at a time. Somewhere else, a teenager was pretending not to enjoy a book they had already read twice. A librarian was almost certainly telling somebody to stop bending a cover backwards.
For a few minutes, all of those people were doing the same private thing together.
Reading gets described as an important skill, which it is. Adults say it helps vocabulary, learning and school results. All true.
But that makes books sound a bit like vitamin tablets.
The better reason to read is that a book lets you borrow another person's brain. You can be inside a castle, a spaceship, a family completely unlike yours, or the mind of somebody who lived a hundred years ago. You can test a frightening idea and close the cover if it gets too much.
Books are also one of the few places where nobody is measuring how quickly you respond. They do not send notifications. A chapter does not become offended if you leave it on read.
New Zealand probably did not become silent at exactly 11am. Somebody would have been sharpening a pencil. A chair would have scraped. At least one person would have whispered, "What page are we on?"
That is fine. The point was not perfect silence.
The point was making room for a story.
If you missed 11am, books are extremely relaxed about start times. Pick one up now. You have not missed anything.