It's World Book Day - at least it is in the U.K.
The UK is celebrating Unesco's World Book Day today, though most other participating nations observe on April 23.
What are we doing about it in New Zealand? Australia? Canada? USA?
Once again, UK schoolchildren can select from nine short books published for the occasion and on sale for just one pound, including Neil Gaiman's Odd and the Frost Giants and Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets.
How fabulous to give kids access to great books in this way. In NZ we have a number of different agencies giving books to a range of kids - Books in Homes do a great job for low decile schools - but don't ALL children need encouraging to read - a rich kid is just as likely not to pick up a book as a poor one.
ReplyDeleteFor another look at how other countries do things take a look at the Irish Book Awards http://www.irishbookawards.ie/AwardDetails.aspx#cat11264
They don't just honour the 'literary books' they also have awards for 'popular' fiction and sports writing, along with the usual.
If people missed World Book Day, look out for International Children's Book Day on 2 April.