Every year, there's a moment when children across Australia, in libraries, classrooms, preschools, and homes, sit down and hear the same story at exactly the same time. On Wednesday 27 May 2026, our Milestones centres were part of that moment.
What Is National Simultaneous Storytime?
National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS) is an annual event organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), now in its 26th year. At 12pm AEST on 27 May, millions of children across the country tuned in to the same book, read aloud simultaneously from coast to coast. It's a celebration of stories, of literacy, and of what it means to be part of a reading community.
This year's book was Luna Roo the Kangaroo Baller by Adam Jackson and Adrian Lloyd, illustrated by Jake Minton, and published by Little Book Press. Selected from 84 submissions, it's a story about courage, teamwork, and believing in yourself, told through the adventures of Luna Roo, the rookie captain of FC Outback, as she leads her team through the most important match of her life.
A Story Worth Sharing
Luna Roo is the kind of book that works on multiple levels. For young children, it's a colourful, exciting adventure full of funny animal characters - spider goalkeepers, snake attackers, and a kangaroo with nerves bigger than her boots. But underneath all that fun is a message that really matters: that trusting yourself and leaning on your team is what helps you through the hard moments.
The authors know their subject well. Adam Jackson spent nearly 20 years in professional football before bringing that world to young readers. Adrian Lloyd is an FA-qualified coach who has worked with children's teams in Australia for decades. Their experience shows in the warmth and energy of the story.
How Our Centres Celebrated
At Milestones, and the broader Affinity Education network of centres across Australia, we believe storytime is always more than just the words on a page. For NSS, our educators brought Luna Roo to life in ways that extended the joy of the story into play, movement, and connection.
Some centres set up soccer-themed sensory trays - a tactile, playful way for children to explore the world of the book before and after the reading. Others took the energy outside with soccer-inspired movement activities, where children could channel their inner Luna Roo. And at several centres, beautiful foyer displays gave children the chance to share their thoughts on the story with their families, making pick-up time part of the celebration.
Why Reading Aloud Together Matters
There's strong evidence behind what happens when we read to children, especially when we do it together, with warmth and engagement. Research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that reading regularly with children from a young age stimulates brain development, strengthens parent-child and educator-child relationships, and builds the language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime.
The benefits show up early. Children begin to gain from shared reading as young as eight months of age. By the time they start school, children who've been read to regularly have been exposed to a richer vocabulary, a wider range of ideas, and the kind of listening and comprehension skills that give them a real head start.
National Simultaneous Storytime amplifies all of that, by adding the knowledge that what's happening in your centre is happening in hundreds of thousands of other places at exactly the same moment. It's a beautiful way to show children that stories connect us.
Continue the Story at Home
One of the best things about NSS is that it doesn't have to end at the centre gate. Luna Roo the Kangaroo Baller is available from your local library and bookshops - a great one to add to the bedtime rotation.
And if you'd like to learn more about how Milestones weaves literacy and language into everything we do, we'd love to show you around.