Read A Book & Help 'Save The Children' At The Same Time — Here's How

There are always a million good reasons to pick up a book, but this week, you can actually read to change the world. Penguin Random House are running a week-long campaign in conjunction with Save the Children, a charity that (among many other amazing things) helps tear down barriers to reading for children in communities across North America. Penguin Random House will be donating books for this great cause — and all you have to do to help them is read.

On the #ProjectReadathon website, you'll find free excerpts from a huge range of exciting books and audiobooks, in genres from YA contemporary to sci-fi to nonfiction. They're divided up by time — so you can easily find a quick chapter to skim in five minutes, or you might settle down with a cup of tea for a good hour and a half read. And all the time that you're reading, #ProjectReadathon is counting. At the top of each excerpt, you'll see the number of books that Penguin Random House will donate in exchange for your reading time. If us readers can bring the total reading time to a million minutes this week, Penguin Random House will give up to 300,000 books to Save the Children. Now that's pretty incredible.

But that's not all you can do to help Save the Children in their #ReadWell mission. The organization Charity Miles also have an app that allows you to donate the miles you've spent walking, running, or biking — and these will count towards #ProjectReadathon's Million Minutes goal. Or, visit Tab for a Cause to donate money simply by opening new tabs in your browser. It couldn't be simpler.

Any project that aims to spread the joy of reading is a worthy one in my eyes. And if it gives us all an excuse to get some more reading done in the process, it's almost too good to be true.