“They lose the cat, they find the cat again, they fall in love and then they get a baby.” This is how Clementine, four-and-a-half, summarises The Truck Cat, a picture book by children’s author Deborah Frenkel and illustrator Danny Snell.
On Wednesday 21 May at noon, more than one million children across Australia will read The Truck Cat in over 9,000 locations, including schools, libraries, homes and hospitals. It’s the 25th instalment of the annual National Simultaneous Storytime, run by the Australian Library and Information Association (Alia). Last year’s event saw 2.3 million people take part; this year, participants are registered from countries as far away as Albania, Lithuania and Italy.
