On Saturday, July 18, more than 3,500 neighbors filled Durham Central Park for our annual Summer Block Party — and in just three hours, children harvested 15,363 books to take home and keep forever. This is what the Block Party tells us, year after year: Children do not need to be persuaded to read. When they have books they chose, books that reflect who they are, books that are theirs to keep, kids reach for reading naturally, joyfully, eagerly. But the Block Party reminds me that we hold a bigger, better, more humane story. And children reminded us — simply by opening their books before they’d even left the park — what matters most.