Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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Industry prepares for 10th Indigenous Literacy Day tomorrow

The 10th Indigenous Literacy Day will take place around Australia on Wednesday 7 September.

The day will kick off with an event at the Sydney Opera House, featuring Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) ambassadors Justine Clarke, Josh Pyke, Deborah Cheetham, Andy Griffiths, Richard Flanagan, Alison Lester and school children from remote Australian communities.

Clarke and Pyke will perform their new ILF song ‘Words Make the World Go Around’ with students from Gawura College, and the ILF will launch its latest publication The Goanna Was Hungry, written and illustrated by children from Tjuntjuntjara, Mt Margaret and Menzies schools with Ann James and Sally Morgan. Hundreds of school students will also participate in a Great Book Swap gold coin fundraiser.

In WA, students from 11 remote East Kimberley schools were visited by state MP Josie Farrer and Kimberley Writers Festival guests Norman Jorgensen and Dub Leffler, who delivered 70 copies of the children’s book anthology Near & Dear. The book was commissioned and published by WritingWA in collaboration with the National Book Development Council of Singapore, and includes stories by seven WA children’s book authors and seven writers from Singapore.

ILF is aiming to raise $200,000 and donate 50,000 books from this year’s Indigenous Literacy Day, which is the organisation’s main fundraising event. Schools, libraries, universities, book clubs, businesses and other organisations are encouraged to sign up to host a Great Book Swap event or another fundraising initiative. Participating bookstores will also donate a percentage of their day’s takings to the ILF.

So far, $859,000 has been raised for the foundation in 2016. In 2015 $186,000 was raised on Indigenous Literacy Day.

Visit the ILF website to donate or to register an event for this year’s Indigenous Literacy Day.

Pictured: Students from remote East Kimberley schools receive their copies of Near & Dear

 

Category: Local news