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Kids affected by Harvey are sharing videos reading their favorite books. It's adorable.

Before Hurricane Harvey hit, schools in and around Katy, Texas, only planned to be closed for a day or two.

Once the storm made landfall and subsequently flooding began, second-grade reading teacher Kathryn Mills says everyone quickly realized the impact would be much, much larger.

"Several of our students have been displaced. Several of our teachers have had to evacuate. There's flooding in some of the schools. The district support center is under water," she says. All they can do is wait and see; school could be closed for weeks — or longer.

Kathryn Mills. Image from Kathryn Mills' Facebook.

From her home outside of Katy — which is thankfully dry, as Mills lives at the top of a hill — she was moved by pictures of many of her students on social media taking shelter in bathrooms and staircases. She was moved even more by the fact that many of them clung to books and were reading to pass the time while they waited out the worst of the storm.

"I love books," she says. "And I love kids loving books."

With a return to school up in the air, Mills decided to harness all that educational energy and keep kids engaged in their reading and keep their minds off the storm.

She started an online book club. With a simple Facebook page, Mills created a space for parents and their kids to share photos and videos of them reading their favorite books while floods raged outside. They could offer each other support to keep going and, more importantly, give each other a reason to smile.

"The main purpose is just to bring some normalcy in the middle of chaos," she says. "A little sunshine in the middle of the storm."

[rebelmouse-image 19528878 dam="1" original_size="258x403" caption="GIF via Emily Browder/Facebook" expand=1]GIF via Emily Browder/Facebook

What started as a small group for about 70 families of current and former students quickly ballooned into a community of almost 50,000 from around the world.

Videos and photos poured in from kids and parents in neighboring states and far-off countries.

[rebelmouse-image 19528879 dam="1" original_size="262x426" caption="GIF via Lindsay Skipper Gunn/Facebook" expand=1]GIF via Lindsay Skipper Gunn/Facebook

"Originally I wanted to go into every post and encourage the kids on how awesome they're doing," Mills says.

Now the group is way too big for that, but plenty of other people are stepping up to make the kids feel loved. The encouragement and the distraction (not to mention a little bit of internet fame) are great for the kids' morale, but Mills says she's been especially moved by the response from adults.

"I think they needed this just as much as the kids did," she says. "The message I've received is, 'I've smiled so much watching these videos.'"

There's still no telling when Houston and the surrounding areas will recover from the flooding enough for some sense of normalcy to return.

It could be a long wait. But while the adults work to put the pieces back together, the kids' job is to still be kids.

With a little help from their favorite books and the Hurricane Harvey Book Club, hopefully they can look back at this time one day and remember more than just the storm.

Joy

Airbnb host wakes his guest up in the middle of the night so she wouldn't miss the northern lights

Best. Host. Ever.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

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nature
Pop Culture

People are loving this Amazon delivery driver for warning a woman that her house is 'unsafe'

Great info, even better delivery.

TikTok

Delivering packages AND safety.

Amazon delivery drivers don’t have the easiest job in the world. Sitting through traffic, working in extreme temperatures, hauling boxes … not exactly a fun time. So when a driver goes out of their way to be extra considerate—people notice.

One delivery driver has gone viral for the way she delivered a little bit of safety education, along with some lighthearted advice. The TikTok video of the encounter, which now has more than 4 million views, was shared by Jessica Huseman, who had only recently moved into her new house.

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acts of kindness
Pop Culture

Christopher Walken dancing in over 50 movies all perfectly spliced into a single music video

Most people don’t know he studied dance as a child.

via YouTube

These days, we could all use something to smile about, and few things do a better job at it than watching actor Christopher Walken dance.

A few years back, some genius at HuffPo Entertainment put together a clip featuring Walken dancing in 50 of his films, and it was taken down. But it re-emerged in 2014 and the world has been a better place for it.

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dance
Joy

A major UCLA study says that at least 65 species of animals laugh

If you've never seen a fox giggle, you're in for a treat.

SaveAFox/YouTube

Foxes giggle like children on helium.

Laughter is one of the most natural impulses in humans. Most babies start to laugh out loud at around 3 to 4 months, far earlier than they are able to speak or walk. Expressing enjoyment or delight comes naturally to us, but we're not the only creatures who communicate with giggles.

Researchers at UCLA have identified 65 species of animals who make "play vocalizations," or what we would consider laughter. Some of those vocalizations were already well documented—we've known for a while that apes and rats laugh—but others may come as a surprise. Along with a long list of primate species, domestic cows and dogs, foxes, seals, mongooses and three bird species are prone to laughter as well. (Many bird species can mimic human laughter, but that's not the same as making their own play vocalizations.)

Primatologist and UCLA anthropology graduate student Sasha Winkler and UCLA professor of communication Greg Bryant shared their findings in an article in the journal Bioacoustics.

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animals
Joy

People are sharing the weirdest, most unforgettable art they've found in thrift stores

As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another one's treasure.

via Thrift Store Art and Thrift Store Art

A few of the rare finds at Thrift Store Art's Instagram page

As the old saying goes, one person's trash is another one's treasure.

Even though people can easily buy used items on eBay, the thrift store business thrives in America, bringing in an estimated $10 billion annually. At a time when the economy is shaky, thrift stores are a recession-proof business. When times are tough, people love to find a deal, and there's never any end to the fashionistas who roam thrift stores looking for a rare find.

San Francisco surfer and self-proclaimed thrift store junkie Bryan Dickerson has turned his passion for rare treasures into an Instagram page with over 246,000 followers. Thrift Store Art showcases the most bizarre things that thrifters find in stores and leans heavily into strange-looking works of art and clothing with questionable sayings. His crowds of followers send him countless strange finds every day, and he rewards them by calling them rude names in the comments.

But for Dickerson, it's all in fun.

He told Bored Panda that the idea of Thrift Store Art is “not to bash art but to expand what can be considered as art—clothing, album art, book graphics, vacation souvenirs.” Dickerson's foray into thrift store content was a much-needed break from his job as the editor of a news website.

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art
Pop Culture

Guy shares the reason viral gym videos need to end, and it's so spot on

"If you can’t respect other people in a shared space, you don’t belong filming at all.”

Reddit

“This sense of entitlement has gotten out of hand."

Gyms are communal spaces where people can come to improve their health, fitness and/or overall well-being.

However, it’s no secret that many gyms have also become a production studio of sorts where influencers can set up a tripod to demonstrate the most cutting-edge squatting technique or where the average Joe can take that obligatory gym selfie to prove that the workout did, in fact, happen.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either of these activities. However, they have sparked a new kind of behavior in gymgoers where they feign extreme frustration if folks walk from one machine to the next or grab a piece of equipment and, heaven forbid, enter the frame.

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community
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