In March National Library Services to Schools once again collaborated with New Zealand Book Month, which encourages Kiwis to celebrate books and reading.

To celebrate New Zealand Book Month this year, the National Library Services to Schools team, in association with Caltex Energy for Learning, distributed $5 book vouchers into schools thoughout New Zealand.

New Zealand Book Month seeks to encourage book ownership wherever possible – based on sound research that shows that children growing up in homes with books receive, on average, an additional three years education when compared with children from bookless homes – regardless of their parents education or financial status.

We also ran events in our Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North centres.

Here Libby Crawford, one of the ambassador’s for NZ Book Month 2013 talks about the books that encouraged and inspired her to read.

Other initiatives include:

Reading Superheroes competition

In conjunction with NZ Book Month we once again ran the popular Reading Superheroes competition. Launched in 2011, Reading Superheroes acknowledges the impact of reading role models.

View the list of Reading Superheroes for 2013.

View a selection of entries including the winning student entries on Tumblr.

Find out more about the Reading Superheroes Competition.

Help your Child Become a Reader brochures

Thanks to generous sponsorship from Caltex Energy for Learning, we have produced some new brochures to help families support and encourage their children to read. These have been translated into Māori, Cook Island Māori, Samoan, Tongan, Niuean and Tokelauan.

Visit our Reading at Home page to download the brochures and to find information on helping inspire and encourage children to read at home.

Our popular Read Aloud guide is also still available for teachers and family members.

Read Aloud Bookmarks

Get ideas for read aloud books and download and print Read Aloud Bookmarks.

Find out more about NZ Book Month from the Book Month website. If you have further questions about New Zealand Book Month please email the project director on megan.dunn@nzbookmonth.co.nz