What in the World is World Book Night?

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World Book Night is coming to the United States this year, and may just be arriving on the streets of Tioga County as well. On the evening of April 23, 2012, nearly 50,000 people will go out into their neighborhoods, across the United States, armed with twenty free copies of a book they are enthusiastic about sharing with people who currently don’t read much. The goal of World Book Night is to start conversations about books, between people who have been inspired by books, and folks who may think books don’t have much to say to them.

Book givers choose one book from a list of thirty books, designated as “accessible works of enduring quality” for this year’s event. The book givers then receive twenty copies of the title of their choice. The World Book Night titles are specially-produced, not-for-sale editions, to be freely given, to foster community literacy, communication, and the kind of conversation that comes out of people talking about a story that touches them.

In looking over this year’s list of thirty books, it is obvious how the choices match the mission statement for “accessible” stories: many aren’t “literary classics” in the traditional sense, but are instead contemporary books with appealing plots, intriguing characters, and realistic dialogue, across a broad spectrum of topics. (This is not to say that we shouldn’t read, or wax enthusiastic, about “literary classics”, which is one reason these works are taught in school.) World Book Night seeks to appeal to non-readers or light readers who need other books, or places besides school, to draw them in to quality writing and the joy of books.

The choices for World Book Night USA, 2012, include female and male authors, target both young adult and adult audiences, and were published as early as 1969 and as recently as 2010. They and their authors have won several awards; some have been made into movies and TV shows; a couple are regularly banned from school curricula or libraries; a couple have been dismissed by academics as “just popular fiction”; some have been touted by talk show hosts or TV book clubs. These books cover every topic from alien invasion to anorexia, from growing up in Afghanistan to doing mission work in Africa. Chosen from every genre from memoir to science fiction, murder mystery to the history of modern genetic research, there truly is something for everyone.

The organizers of the first World Book Night were inspired by the success of “World Book Day”, a literacy celebration in the UK and Ireland, now in its fifteenth year. On the first World Book Day, more than 600,000 school children cashed in a token in exchange for one of a list of specially-chosen books. As their website states, World Book Day is a partnership of people who love and work with books, who want to inspire a love of reading in children. Every child under 18 who is in full-time education in the UK or in Ireland receives a token. These tokens can then be taken to a bookshop and used either to redeem one of eight specially-produced World Book Day books, or to receive a “1 pound” discount off a regularly-priced book of their choice. On this March 1st, over 14 million book tokens will be given out in order to get children “closer to the books and authors they already love” and to help them discover more to love for their futures.

The first World Book Night was just a little less than one year ago, on March 5, 2011, all across the UK and Ireland. Backed by big-name authors, large publishing houses, bookstores small and large, it met with huge success. This year – only the second year of World Book Night as an event – will be the first year the success and spirit of World Book Night spreads to the United States. The hope is to encourage its growth into many more countries over the next several years.

For more information about World Book Night, including a full list of the thirty books chosen, check out their website at http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/ and watch for more news in the coming weeks, as book givers are chosen from the pool of applicants, with nearly twenty-five applicants from this area!