Nunn and Gleitzman named ambassadors for Australian Reading Hour 2018

Australian Reading Hour has announced authors Judy Nunn and Morris Gleitzman as the national ambassadors for the initiative in 2018, which will be held this year on 20 September.

This year’s theme is ‘make a date with a book’, and participants will be encouraged to read for an hour any time during the day or attend reading events to celebrate the benefits of reading.

As one of the campaign ambassadors, Nunn said she hopes to share her love of reading with the public.  ‘The worlds, characters and emotions created by a good book is unrivalled; it’s the perfect escape from the everyday.’

Australian Children’s Laureate Gleitzman said he will use this opportunity to ‘gently remind the adult community that young people deserve [the] pleasure [of reading] every day’. ‘No other activity will better equip young people to embrace their futures in a sometimes dark and uncertain world with optimism, resolve and creativity. Our stories have saved us in the past, and in the minds of young readers they can again,’ he said.

Following last year’s cross-industry support for the event, industry bodies the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), the Australian Publishers Association (APA), the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) and the Copyright Agency are coming together to back the campaign again this year.

Hachette Australia joint managing director and chair of the Australian Reading Hour committee, Louise Sherwin-Stark, said the planning group is aiming to make the 2018 event the biggest yet. ‘We will be working with businesses and organisations across the country to spread our message and stage our biggest PR and advertising campaign yet. Our ambition is for the Australian Reading Hour to become everyone’s favourite day in the year,’ she said.

The Australian Reading Hour campaign is an extension of ALIA’s Reading Hour event, which ran annually from 2012 to 2016. The 2018 campaign will be officially launched at Parliament House in Canberra on 18 September, with ambassadors Nunn and Gleitzman in attendance.

Booksellers, librarians and teachers interested in organising a reading event are encouraged to register at the Australian Reading Hour website, where  additional resources can be downloaded.

Category: Local news