It's not every morning that you have breakfast at Parliament ...

And this morning's was a very special event, to mark the 20th anniversary of Duffy's Books in Homes. As well as being served a delicious breakfast, we got to watch videos about the Books in Homes programme and listen to some great speakers, including Ben Carson, a black American paediatric neurosurgeon who was raised in a solo parent household with very little money. He tells the story of how his mother made him and his brother read two books a week, and write her a report on them for her, instead of watching so much television, and he credits reading with helping him out of poverty and setting him on the path to becoming a doctor.

The person I was sitting beside told me about a movie made about his life, called Gifted hands. Something else to put on the list of movies to watch. And now I've just checked, and the movie is based on a book - another book to read!

 ! 

Christine Fernyhough and Alan Duff, who started the Books in Homes programme, also spoke, and pupils from Camberley School in Hastings - which saw the first ever Books in Schools visit - made a special trip down to Wellington to be present and sang three songs for us, including the Duffy song. I hope they enjoyed themselves, because they had to sit for a long time listening to grown-ups' speeches! But it was very nice to find this newspaper article about their visit.

Tequila Smith (left), Sativa Hooper, Sebastian Kohiti, Messines Roanaki, Kaiba Thompson of Camberley School, Hastings, are going to Wellington to celebrate Duffy Books in Homes' 20th anniversary. Photo/Warren Buckland

You can read about the history of the books in homes programme here. Twenty years of operation and ten million books distributed to children from low-income families are two great milestones to have achieved.