The Reading Hour
The 2013 Reading Hour is from 5pm to 6pm on 24 August 2013.
The Reading Hour is a celebration of books and readers initiated in 2012, the National Year of Reading (this is a link to a pdf file which summarises the National Year of Reading).
Love2Read, a collaboration of public libraries, government, community groups, media and commercial partners, has extended The Reading Hour into 2013. You can see some of the events and programs being held across Australia to celebrate The Reading Hour, here.
Tristan Bancks, one of the terrific authors who support Reading for Australia, is also a National Ambassador for The Reading Hour. See the piece that Tristan wrote for Reading for Australia, here.
Book of the Year 2013
The Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year 2013 winners have been announced. See the complete list here.
Congratulations to all - including two of Reading for Australia's supporting authors, Jackie French, winner of an honour award for Pennies for Hitler (Angus & Robertson Harper Collins Publishers) and Ursula Dubosarsky, winner of an honour award for Too Many Elephants in This House (Viking Books Penguin Group).
You can read the pieces that Jackie and Ursula wrote for Reading for Australia here and here.
Let us know if there are interesting book happenings in your part of the world.
Educational Publishing Awards
Have a look at this link to the Australian Publishers Association site for details of the winners of the 2013 Australian Educational Publishing Awards.
The Reading Hour's an interesting idea. I hope it's sufficiently well publicised to attract lots of participants. We have a few similar things happening in the UK, but not a reading hour - perhaps we should!
ReplyDeleteI was a book donor in this year's World Book Night event, giving out twenty copies of The Knife of Letting Go (which I see you have reviewed on your website) to tourists who passed through our village that night or the following day. As they were walking Hadrian's Wall and fully into the Roman experience, they were surprised to be given a book by a stranger on a completely different subject, but they were all happy to accept the book and, I hope, enjoyed reading it and passed it on to friends or fellow travellers.
Spreading the word is so important and you appear to be doing a great job with RFA!! Well done.
Thank you for your comment, Trevor.
DeleteI hadn't heard about World Book Night (held on 23 April this year) so had a look at the website.
Here's how the event is described there:
World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books which sees tens of thousands of passionate volunteers gift specially chosen and printed books in their communities to share their love of reading. World Book Night is celebrated on April 23. In 2013 it is being celebrated in the UK, Ireland and the USA.
World Book Night is about giving books and encouraging reading in those who don’t regularly do so. But it is also about more than that: it’s about people, communities and connections, about reaching out to others and touching lives in the simplest of ways, through the sharing of stories.
What a fabulous idea! I know a number of kids who would be thrilled to receive - or even give out - copies of Patrick Ness' 'The Knife of Never Letting Go'. It is a very cool book (and a great read).
If you would like to learn more about World Book Day, here is the link:
http://www.worldbooknight.org/about-us
And if you, like me, were wondering why World Book Night is held on 23 April here's why that date was chosen:
DeleteWhy April 23rd?
April 23 is a symbolic date for world literature. It is both the birth and death day of Shakespeare, as well as the death day of Cervantes, the great Spanish novelist.
It is in their honour that UNESCO appointed it the international day of the book and that we choose it to celebrate World Book Night.
April 23rd also marks the city of Barcelona's celebration of St George's Day. St George is the patron saint of Catalonia as well as England and traditionally, to celebrate this day, Spanish gentlemen gave their ladies roses and the ladies returned the favour with a book.
Considering the rich literary history of this day, it seemed more than fitting that April 23rd should be chosen as the day of celebrating reading and the giving of books!