text: Schools celebrate world of reading | The West Australian
  Schools celebrate world of reading
  Tue, 21 August 2012 12:48PM
  Thousands of Harry Potters, a sprinkling of Zac Powers and maybe a few vampires will invade school playgrounds this week in celebration of reading and imagination. It is Children's Book Week, co-ordinated by the Children's Book Council of Australia, just one of the organisations intent on opening the world of books for children.
  Each year the WA branch of the Children's Book Council - the majority of whose 300 members are school librarians and teachers - dispenses $60,000 in funding to public libraries across the State for their Book Week activities.
  "We're the only branch in Australia to do so," Jan Nicholls, the WA branch president, says. "This year we have 19 applicants from the metro area and 13 from country centres stretching from Albany to One Arm Point in the far north."
  One of the aims of the council is to celebrate the contributions to Australian children's literature through the annual CBCA Book of the Year Awards, which were announced last Friday. Ms Nicholls sees this as a positive step in supporting Australian writers and illustrators of children's books.
  "It's important for young people to have creative role models as well as the sporting ones we often see," she says.
  Helping parents to be good reading role models and showing them how to teach their children about literacy is one of the aims of The Place, the State Library of WA's child and family centre.
  "This was a reference library for many years," Hilary Hatfield, community liaison librarian for children and families and co-ordinator of The Place, says. "Children weren't really welcome. We wanted to change all that, so four years ago we developed The Place."
  On the mezzanine level of the library, The Place has an area where children can read the huge collection of children's books, access literary games on computers, play with puppets and dress up.
  "We wanted an area where kids could get comfortable with books and learn from the very beginning that books are wonderful things to share."
  Lesley Reece, director of The Literature Centre (formerly the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre), believes it's not enough just to teach our children to read.
  "We want them itching to read another book, write their own story or illustrate a picture book," she says.
  In 1991 when the Fremantle Prison was closing and a committee was formed to decide what to do with the building, Lesley Reece knew exactly what she wanted.
  "I wanted to establish a centre that celebrated, promoted and nurtured Australian children's literature. I wanted a centre that nurtured young people's creativity helping them to believe that they could be part of the creative process."
  Today The Literature Centre provides quality student workshops and writing programs across the State. It conducts professional development for teachers as well as supporting Australia's talented authors and illustrators of literature for children and young adults.
  Promoting Australian literature on the world stage as well as encouraging every child to learn to read in their mother tongue are just two of the aims of The International Board on Books for Young People. Founded in Switzerland in 1953, the IBBY was created out of the belief that the world's children could be brought together through books. .