Today, Thursday, World Book Day celebrates its 20th anniversary - and bookstores, publishers, libraries, schools and booklovers around the world are joining in the celebrations. World Book Day is also a very special day at Bertelsmann, especially for publishers. "Reading is an important key to education and independent thinking," says Karin Schlautmann, Head of Corporate Communications. "Therefore, it’s particularly important to us to specifically support the promotion of literacy and reading. An enlightened society needs books, because only people who read can also understand and make independent decisions."
To help over 50 children’s daycare centers in the Gütersloh region promote reading among their charges and to honor the work of educators, Bertelsmann has also donated books this year from the Club and German Random House publishers’ ranges. At the "Rappelkiste" children’s daycare center yesterday the children were already reading titles such as "Im Garten der Schmetterlinge" (In the Garden of Butterflies) or "Das grosse Lieselotte Geschichtenbuch" (The Big Lieselotte Storybook). Ines Kanning, head of the daycare center, was as pleased by the gifts as the children were: "Books enrich the work of our daycare center, because they stimulate the children's imagination and awaken their desire for reading. We’re delighted that we now have even more titles that the children can discover for themselves."
"Ich schenk dir eine Geschichte"
Verlagsgruppe Random House and its children’s and young adult imprint CBJ are once again making a decisive contribution to World Book Day with the book "Ich schenk Dir eine Geschichte" (My Gift to You: A Story), Germany’s most extensive and long-running campaign to promote reading. This year, author Dirk Ahner has written an exciting children’s thriller featuring intrepid heroes – "Die Krokodilbande in geheimer Mission" (The Crocodile Gang On A Secret Mission), featuring the detectives Mike and Danilo. To publicize the campaign, a major press conference was held at Cologne Zoo yesterday. Not only were there a lot of reptiles present – after all one of them is the star of the book – but also about 50 schoolchildren, as well as CBJ author Dirk Ahner, RTL presenter and Stiftung Lesen reading ambassador Peter Kloeppel, and Jürgen Weidenbach, Publisher and Managing Director of CBJ.
Since January, colleagues at the Arvato subsidiary GGP Media in Pössneck have printed over a million copies of the book, some even with individual company logos for large bookstores. Their Arvato colleagues at VVA delivered the first 700,000 copies to bookstores in late March. Earlier this month, the Stiftung Lesen literacy foundation then distributed 32,500 packages with vouchers to the respective class teachers, so that today around 800,000 pupils can go to one of over 3,000 participating bookstores to redeem their "Ich schenk Dir eine Geschichte" World Book Day voucher. Many bookstores offered tours and readings to mark the occasion. The Corporate Center Mediastore in Gütersloh is also involved once again: Any employee who buys a children's book today also receives a free copy of the "Ich schenk Dir eine Geschichte" book.
"Diada de Sant Jordi" and "La Noche de los Libros"
In Spain, World Book Day is traditionally celebrated on an even grander scale, because this is where it all really began. In Catalonia, for example, people have presented roses to each other on "Diada de Sant Jordi" (Catalan for "Saint George’s Day") since the Middle Ages. Later books were added – an eloquent combination of love and literature The tradition of giving away books on this day is more recent and probably goes back to the 1923 initiative by a bookseller who gave away books to commemorate the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes.
Today, Barcelona city center is festooned in colorful decorations: Numerous stands selling books and roses are set up along the famous La Rambla and its side streets. Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, too, will host numerous events at bookstores featuring its authors signing their books as part of World Book Day. Among the authors participating in this promotion are Ken Follett, Patricia Pérez, Javier Marias, Manuel Rivas, Paul Preston, Toni Hill, Jaume Valor, Rafael Santandreu, Graziella Moreno, Albert Espinosa, Agustina Guerrero Raquel Diaz, Ana Punset, Sergi Doria and Fernando Ónega.
World Book Night (La Noche de los Libras) in Madrid is all about sharing one’s love of reading with others. Here too, authors from Spanish Penguin Random House publishers will sign books, including Belén Gopegui, Elvira Navarro, Julio Llamazares, Ray Loriga, Javier Gomá, Mayra Gómez Kemp, Sofía Cristo and Luis Montero Manglano.
