International Children's Book Day is celebrated every year on 2 April, which is also Hans Christian Andersen's birthday. It is a special day where we celebrate children's books and encourage children to read. We have fantastic books from all over the world in our libraries, in lots of different forms.
International Children's Book Day 2019
The theme of ICBD 2019 is Books help us slow down. IBBY Lithuania is the sponsor for International Children's Book Day 2019.
Read the message and see the poster written and illustrated by Kęstutis Kasparavičius, message translated from Lithiuanian by Daina Valentinavičienė
I'm in a hurry! ... I don’t have time! ... Good-bye! ... We hear words like that almost every day, not only in Lithuania, which is in the very centre of Europe, but in many other places of the world. No less frequently do we hear that we live in the age of information overload, haste and rush.
But if you take a book into your hands, you immediately feel a change. It seems that books have this wonderful quality – they help us slow down. As soon as you open a book and delve into its tranquil depths, you no longer fear that things will whizz by at a maddening speed while you see nothing. All of a sudden, you come to believe you don’t have to dash off like a bat out of hell to do some urgent work of little importance. In books, things happen quietly and in a precisely arranged order. Maybe because their pages are numbered, maybe because the pages rustle gently and soothingly as you leaf through them. In books, events of the past calmly meet events that are yet to come ...
Celebrate International Children's Book Day
Here are some ways you can celebrate International Children's Book Day with your library:
- Visit one of our libraries and take home a huge stack of books, DVDs, magazines.
- Hop along to Wā Pēpi - Babytimes or Wā Kōrero - Storytimes.
- Play Fun for kids These are the websites and games for fun and learning that we link to on the kids' computers at your local library.
- Browse the latest new books, DVDs, and audiobooks for kids.
- Borrow eBooks from our collection. You can borrow eBooks anywhere, anytime.
- Subscribe to newsletters Kids and Picture Books.
- Try Story Box Library - watch and listen to celebrated stories read aloud by Australian and New Zealand storytellers.
- Watch and listen to an animated story on TumbleBook Library.
- Read our interviews New Zealand Children's Author interviews. The latest is with local Christchurch writer Swapna Haddow.
- Check our booklists to find some books and authors. The latest Picture books: Islam and empathy features stories for young children with Muslim characters, and books about equality, empathy and tolerance.
