Today's Feel Good Story Of The Day.
Toby asked his mum if he too could write a letter to New Zealand. After a few more steps he was struck by an even better idea. "Can I write a letter to every country in the world?"
Three years on, sipping tea in the living room of their family home in the village of Bolsterstone, in South Yorkshire, England, Sabine, 40, says she often wonders what would have happened if she had replied differently that day.
"It was just one of those typical questions that five-year-olds have," she says. "If he had asked me in the evening when I was knackered I might have refused. But as parents you realise there's a lot of power in just allowing kids to have a go. Also, it seemed a nice way to do some armchair exploration. So I told him let's see how far you get."
The answer, it transpires, was very far indeed. Toby has since written and posted letters to all 193 UN member states, as well as numerous other obscure overseas territories including the Pitcairn Islands (a British colony settled in the Pacific by the HMS Bounty mutineers), French Polynesia and even the Vatican.
To date he has written 681 letters - the best of which have been selected to appear in a new book called Dear World, How Are You?, which is published by Penguin on March 24 - although so prolific is Toby's pen that that number will have risen by the time you read this. The previous week, when I met him for his first full newspaper interview since rocketing to fame, he was on 665.
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Onya Toby.
Toby Little, the boy who decided to write a letter to every country in the world 
Feel The Power Of The Mark Side
Raising a child is akin to knowing you're getting fired in 18 years and having to train your replacement without actively sabotaging them.