It’s time for a new World Book Day. I’ve written about this event before here and here so do click these links to read in more detail about what this day means.
To reiterate, the World Book Day or World Book and Copyright Day (also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Days) is a yearly event on April 23rd, organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to promote reading, publishing and copyright. In the United Kingdom, the day is recognized on the first Thursday in March. World Book Day was celebrated for the first time on 23 April 1995.
This year’s World Book Day theme is “Share A Story” and encourages adults, parents and older siblings to participate by reading and sharing stories. The ‘Share a Story’ theme will be encouraging people to ‘Take 10’ and recognise the positive impact that reading together for only 10 minutes a day can have on a child’s outcome.
Different countries commemorate this day in different ways. In Spain, Cervantes’s Don Quixote is read during a two-day “readathon” and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize is presented by the Spanish king in Alcalá de Henares.
In Catalonia, Spain, St. George’s Day has been ‘The Day of the Rose’ since 1436, and involves the exchange of gifts between loved ones and respected people—it is analogous to Valentine’s Day. Although World Book and Copyright Day have been celebrated since 1995 internationally, books were exchanged on ‘The Day of the Rose’ in Catalonia since 1929, in memory of Cervantes.
In Sweden, the day is known as Världsbokdagen (“World Book Day”) and the copyright aspect is seldom mentioned. Normally celebrated on 23 April, it was moved to April 13 in the year 2000 and 2011 to avoid a clash with Easter.
In the United Kingdom, World Book Day has been held annually on the first Thursday in March, as 23 April sometimes clashes with Easter school holidays; 23 April is also the National Saint’s Day of England, St George’s Day. A separate event, World Book Night, organized by independent charity The Reading Agency, is held on 23 April.
In Kensington, Maryland, the United States of America, the International Day of the Book is celebrated with a street festival on the Sunday closest to April 26.
So why are you waiting? Go on and read a book…..
Things Fall Apart tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which centre around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty, it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society.
Italy, 1943—Germany occupies much of the country, placing the Jewish population in grave danger during World War II.
