Want A Bedtime Story Read To You From Outer Space?

As a kid, being read a bedtime story was one of my favorite times of the day. But one lucky boy just seriously upped the stakes — by having his bedtime story read by Tim Peake from space! Back in December, 7-year-old Roraigh brought his personalized copy of The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home (an impossibly cool storybook from adorable children's publishing company Lost My Name) all the way to the Kennedy Space Center — where it was blasted into space! Up at the International Space Station, British astronaut Tim Peake settled down to read the book.

The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home tells the story of a young child (it's personalized, so in this case, Roraigh) who ends up lost in outer space, and has to find their way home. At every step of the way, the book is tailored to the individual child (or adult, of course — I may or may not have bought a couple of these books for myself...), so the spaceship finds its way back to the right country, the right city, and eventually all the way up to the right front door.

That must have been Roraigh's most thrilling bedtime story ever — but it's not the first time something so exciting has happened. The not-for-profit Story Time From Space project has been sending children's books into space since 2014, where they've been read aloud by astronauts living on the ISS. Space-themed storybooks like Max Goes to the Space Station by Jeffrey Bennett have been read at 17,000 miles an hour to settle down children for bed — though I have a feeling it will have made them much more excited and awake instead!

Image: Courtesy of Lost My Name