In order to make you feel inadequate about your life’s work, I recently met an 11 year old girl who has published a series of books.

It’s not as though I’m much more accomplished. #ScaiaBlog was born after a literary agent suggested, after seeing me write a blog for a radio station, if I owned the rights to the writing, she could cook up a book deal. Mya Perez is younger than this blog and already making more money from her strategy.

She came to the Garland Animal Shelter, which invited kids to read books to the animals to start them thinking about going back to school.

And by “read books to the animals,” I mean “read stories as the animals wander around.”

“I got some things I want to say to the media,” one barked, walking directly toward me and a TV photographer. Others were divas, just seeking out the camera.

Others, though, were more preoccupied with bacon. I respect that. Give me the option of reading Pride and Prejudice or gnawing on some bacon, and Jane Austen will lose every time. She had to have known that. It is, after, a tale of perseverance and class struggle.

“I’m not better than bacon,” Mr. Darcy might have exclaimed.

Meanwhile, the kids kept plugging away. The animals can help students learn a valuable lesson for the new school year: Never give up. If you keep working toward a goal, keep adapting, you can achieve anything. The kid matched with the prima donna solved the problem, and they enjoyed the story together.

The shelter’s community outreach coordinator says an event like this can get kids excited to read. They share stories with dogs who won’t judge us if we think Pride and Prejudice was a bit stuffy.

This also gets the word out they’ve got a lot of animals up for adoption, and this can help the doggies relax outside their cell and learn how to make friends.

The Scaias had a cat growing up, and some of the kids did sign up to read to cats. But the cats couldn’t have seemed less interested.