The ninth annual Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, a project developed to “instill a love of bookstores in children so that they will value and support this most precious of resources as they go on to enter and create communities of their own,” will be held today, Saturday, December 1 around the world

Created by author Jenny Milchman, the first TYCTB was celebrated by 80 U.S. bookstores and has now grown to include more than 800 stores in every U.S. state, seven Canadian provinces, and countries on five continents.

For the 2018 edition, Milchman has teamed up with children’s poetry author Brett Fleishman, who wrote a special  poem titled “Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day”:

They entered the store
At 11:04
Both the Mom and her teenager Quinn
Right behind were two more
Hand in hand through the door
Came a Dad and his younger son Flynn
With their books on the floor
They looked happy for sure
As more kids and their parents came in
When they left the group swore
They’d return, but what for?
For more books since those books made them grin

So grab a kid— anyone’s will do —and head to your nearest indie bookshop.