In the age of shrinking attention spans, one Palmerston North teenager has just opened a second-hand bookstore.
After months of preparation, 15-year-old Pari Rao opened Olive Books in time for the school holidays this week.
Pari Rao, 15, has opened a second-hand book shop in Palmerston North. She says she's passionate about getting teens reading. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
Pari, a voracious reader herself, is passionate about encouraging other young people to pick up books.
In April this year, she got inspired by a TV show about a guy who owns a bookstore and talked to her mum about doing it herself.
"She was like 'oh yeah, I've always wanted a bookstore'. So then I was like 'well, we kind of have to do it, don't we?"
Pari's mother Vasudha once worked for Oxford University Press and her own father was a bookseller in India.
She says it's really cool that Pari is continuing the family tradition.
"If she wants to do something she goes ahead and does it. I'm just the sidekick, just the adult, the signature person. It's really all her."
Pari doesn't expect to make a profit from Olive Books but thanks to donations, a grant and some crowdfunding, it wasn't an expensive business to set up.
"If you Google [setting up a business] you'd think it would cost upwards of $40,000 but I think we've been able to keep costs under $2,000."
Many teenagers associate reading with schoolwork, Pari says, and her main purpose with the shop is to promote the idea that reading isn't a chore.
The sustainability aspect of book recycling appeals to her, too.
"Instead of having these old books thrown away, you're kind of giving them a new life. There's nothing actually wrong with this book so why don't I read it and then sell it so someone else can read it as well?"
Olive Books is located on the ground floor of Palmerston North's Square Edge Community Arts Centre.
