World Book Day 2022!
Hello Writing Community! Today is WORLD BOOK DAY! A day to celebrate all things books! But, did you know why we have a world book day? And why it is today? Plus, did you know that today is the 25th World Book Day in the UK?
World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. It is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.
The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to encourage young people to discover the pleasure of reading.
As World Book Day founder, Baroness Gail Rebuck, recalls “We wanted to do something to reposition reading and our message is the same today as it was then – that reading is fun, relevant, accessible, exciting, and has the power to transform lives.”
Gail Rebuck is the chair of Penguin Random House UK. She has worked in publishing for more than four decades and was formerly a member of the government’s creative industries task force. She is being identified as one of the women who could be the next director general of the BBC!
World Book Day continues to encourage children and young people to read for pleasure through its work with authors, illustrators, bookshops and libraries. Thanks to National Book Tokens, book publishers and booksellers, World Book Day, in partnership with schools all over the country, now distributes more than 15 million £1 World Book Day book tokens to children and young people (that’s almost one for every child/young person under 18 in the UK and Ireland).
Check out world book days live videos today!
https://youtu.be/uOGWEFzctSo
You can find out more from WorldBookDay.Com. If you would like to donate to world book day, you can do here.
#WorldBookDay 2022!
Outside of the UK, World Book Day is celebrated on another day, in another month, and has a different mission. Where World Book Day UK is celebrated in March and promotes reading for children and young people, UNESCO World Book Day is celebrated in April.
UNESCO???? Yes, UNESCO. UNESCO stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Its mission is to promote reading, publishing, and Copywrite. "UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the Second World War, is to advance peace, sustainable development, and human rights by facilitating collaboration and dialogue among nations." Now, this is a good mission to have. It was formally known as the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation! Its aim was to use five major program areas to promote that mission: education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture, and communication/information. They believe that technical training and education, advance science, protect independent media and press freedom, preserve regional and cultural history, and promote cultural diversity.
So, world book day, on both the UK and USA fronts, is a true celebration of culture, history, diversity, and growth. Important and essential factors in today's world. Encouraging reading in today's youth has never been so important, with mobile devices and social media so easily availably, we may be missing out on the next Stephen King or the next Jane Austen. Read to your children, talk about exciting books where possible, and most importantly, keep writing and supporting other authors.
