With celebrity readers, children enjoy their favourite stories

Summer Book Club’s ninth session was attended by over 60 children.

ISLAMABAD: The ninth session of the Summer Book Club, established to encourage schoolchildren to read books, was held at the National Book Foundation (NBF) on Thursday.

The summer book club, is part of the NBF’s efforts to promote the reading culture among children and inspire them to read books to enrich their intellect.

Every Thursday the club gets together and a celebrity is invited to read to children. In this session, NBF’s Book Ambassador and TV artist Laila Zuberi narrated the stories to children. The famous actor read Ibn-e-Insha’s story “Mein dorta hi dorta”. The NBF’s auditorium was full with over 60 children who had come along with their parents and teachers.

In addition to the book reading, children at the session enjoyed varied activities like reading, sketching and painting.

NBF Managing Director Mazharul Islam, who conceived the idea, briefed the media about the club. He said children will also be taken to a press and taught about the book binding and printing process.

“The club aims to promote culture of book reading among children,” said Islam who is an internationally known short-story writer.

He has introduced many such unique projects including a village library, travellers’ library and prisons’ library in the past couple of years.

Islam explained that the book clubs were established across the country to provide readers with easy and free access to books. “It is discouraging to see people, especially children watch pointless soap operas and TV programmes instead of reading books,” Islam added.

NBF Deputy Director Afshan Sajid said they are welcoming all children between the ages of 5 and 15 to join the summer club and enjoy a large collection of storybooks, novels and comics.

Sajid, who also coordinates the club, told media that the number of children joining them is increasing daily, which is a positive sign.

Following the reading session, the children were allowed to explore the club and pick up books of their choice. A relaxed and friendly environment was provided to children, who could be seen lying on cushions and reading their favourite stories.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2012.