March is New Zealand Book Month, which offers a fantastic excuse to get out and celebrate books and reading at events around the country.
Events taking place at National Library centres range from authors’ talks and book launches to literacy workshops for educators and the NZ Post Mock Children’s Book Awards.

The theme of this year’s NZ Book Month is Books Change Lives so NZ Book Month is giving away over four million $5 book vouchers throughout March. A million vouchers will be sent to households around New Zealand and thanks to the support of Caltex Energy for Learning, book vouchers and resources promoting reading aloud will be delivered to schools throughout New Zealand. The mail out to schools will also include our popular Read Aloud brochures, which are now available in Maori, Samoan, Tongan and Cook Island Maori.

Other initiatives include the Reading Superheroes Competition. We got a fantastic response last year receiving hundreds of heartfelt entries from around the country, so do encourage your students to enter. This year there will also be prizes for the most creative and inspirational entries. Throughout March TVNZ7 will be screening My Reading Superhero, a series of animated short episodes where students acknowledge the teachers, librarians and family members who introduced them to the wonders of reading. They will also soon have free resources available from their website for educators based on the Good Word Jnr series.

Visit the NZ Book Month website to find out more about Book Month and events.

by Jo