Unesco has declared 23 April -William Shakespeare’s birthday -the annual World Day of the Book. The idea has spread rapidly and successfully over much of the world. In Catalonia, Spain, for instance, there is a festival of bookselling, and buyers are given a rose. In Holland a well-known author writes a small book and this is given to every book-buyer that day.
South Africa’s Centre for the Book, in conjunction with all the book-related groups in this country, is using the Day of the Book to help foster an awareness of books and reading. This year the theme is “Children”, and the centre’s slogan is “Share a story today!”
Libraries, schools, centres and booksellers will be celebrating the day with storytelling, story-reading and story-making. Many booksellers are making a special effort to sell children’s books, and will encourage adults to buy a book for a child. Several booksellers, schools and libraries are collecting books which will then be given to disadvantaged school libraries. The Centre for the Book in Cape Town will be hosting children from Thembani, Bokmakierie and Surrey primary schools:they will have a morning of storytelling followed by a session during which they can make their own storybooks.
The speaker of Parliament has given permission for the Centre for the Book to have an occasion at Parliament where children will be reading their own stories and where each MP will have the opportunity to buy a book for a child.
The Mail & Guardian and The Children’s Book Forum will launch the new travelling exhibition of children’s books on the evening of April 23 at the Centre for the Book. The speakers will include Nigerian author and professor of English at the University of the Western Cape Kole Omotoso, and The Children’s Book Forum will use the occasion to announce their honours list of the best books of 1997.
Phone the Centre for the Book at (021) 24-6320 for more information, or see advertisement on page 6 of this supplement.