Children in Berks County, Pennsylvania are battling for literacy against local felines. A program called Book Buddies allows kids in first through eighth grade to practice reading at the Animal Rescue League, where there are plenty of cats to sit on top of their books and prevent them from reading.

The program began in August, and has received a lot of web traffic since an adorable picture made its way to Reddit three days ago. A ten year-old kid named Sean, son of the shelter’s program coordinator Kristi Rodriguez, appears with a book and an orange cat nuzzling his shoulder. There is no way that cat was posed for more than ten seconds before it went for the kid’s shoelaces, but Sean’s habit of reading to the cats has inspired the shelter to create a full-fledged literacy program. Rodriguez reports that Sean has shown remarkable improvement in his reading and now reads to their dogs at home.

Who knows how to spread adorable cat photos better than Reddit? The story was in Time within three days. Berks ARL Marketing & Communications Director Beth Ireland explained in the article that the reading voices are soothing to the animals, and they assure the children, “The cats aren’t going to care if you mess up.”

The kids are rewarded with pretzels or stickers after they complete the virtually impossible task of reading five books aloud in the cat room. Everybody knows cats will be more interested in rubbing their faces against the corners of books, kneading shirts, or playing with the kids’ hair than listening to a story. From the look of these photos, these cats are doing everything in their power to keep the grade schoolers from their books. The children read on, defiantly.