Celebrate....

Children's Book Week!

Image courtesy of Children's Book Council

You must remember it from elementary school (for me the memory includes "READ" posters decorating the halls and free bookmarks!) and it is still around.

"It all began with the idea that children's books can change lives. In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books. He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be
supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians. Mathiews enlisted two important allies: Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly (the publishing industry trade journal), and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world. With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916 the American Booksellers Association and the American Library
Association cooperated with the Boy Scouts in sponsoring a Good Book Week. At the 1919 ABA convention, the Association committed to the organization of an annual Children's Book Week. A few months later, the official approval of the American Library Association was also secured during its first Children's Librarians session." - CBC website

I was a total bookworm as a kid and things like Book Week, summer reading lists, and the traveling school book fairs were so exciting to me. Worm or not , however, most of the kids I knew liked Book Week because our elementary school had a poster contest and the winner had their artistic venture displayed in.....the cafeteria! That was school-wide celebrity, the bigtime. I never made it there, but I'm not bitter. Now, I love seeing the art selected every year for the National Children's Book Week poster, such as the image above by illustrator Ian Falconer. I also recently discovered that for simply the cost of postage you can get your very own Book Week poster. What a nifty collection to start- my request is already in the mail.

This week I'll be celebrating more than my free poster. I will be participating in the Book Week program at my local library, being grateful that someone recognized children's books can change lives and created a whole week about just that.