There were also 15 schools abroad among the over 3,700 schools that took part, from 16 to 21 November 2020, in the 7th edition of ‘Libriamoci. Giornate di lettura nelle scuole‘ (Let’s get reading: reading days in schools), the initiative promoted every year by the Centro per il libro e la lettura (Centre for Books and Reading) of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and for Tourism.

The initiative aims to encourage reading among young people, inviting them to create and organise, as part of their school activities on the reading days, moments of reading aloud with no assessment involved.  A total of 9,173 activities were undertaken (this year with the dual classroom/online format) involving over 410,000 pupils and 16,600 volunteer readers from 3,749 schools, including 15 schools worldwide: in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Georgia Greece, Morocco, Romania and Switzerland.

This year’s theme was ‘Positivi alla lettura‘ (Positive for reading), chosen to reverse the negative connotation of the expression due to the current coronavirus emergency. There were three themes of free inspiration: ‘Contagiato dalle storie’, ‘Contagiati dalle idee’ and ‘Contagiati dalla gentilezza’ (Infected by Stories, Infected by Ideas and Infected by Kindness). In addition, once again this year the event was twinned with #ioleggoperché (#Ireadbecause), a national campaign organised by the Italian Publishers Association for the creation and strengthening of school libraries, collecting book donations from citizens and publishers.

The Directorate General for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation promoted the initiative through the network of Embassies and Consulates, to state and state-authorized private schools abroad, as well as to foreign, international and European schools.

Further information on the website www.cepell.it