Spread the Reading Love: WORLD BOOK NIGHT is Tonight!

World Book Night. Hmmmmmm.

That's like a night where books rain from the sky and all us BOOK LOVERS get together and try to catch as many as our arms will carry. Right??

While I would love for the above statement to be true, that is not quite what UNESCO meant when they dubbed April 23rd as the international day of the book (I'll save you the time of a Google search, UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). Though it started in the UK and Ireland in 2011, the US came up to speed in 2012 and now World Book Night US has made its presence here!

World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person. Each year on April 23--Shakespeare's birthday--tens of thousands of people in the U.S. go out into their communities and give a total of half of a million FREE World Book Night paperbacks to light and non-readers. So basically, World Book Night has the same mission as Delicious Reads: to get everyone to love reading as much as we do! Local volunteers take books to prisons, nursing homes and alternative high schools, among other places.


The King's English Bookshop, is an official pick up location for Book Givers.

How can you get involved? If you live in Utah, you can participate by joining volunteers at the SLC Main Library at 210 E. 400 S. at 10 am on April 23rd. Check online for events throughout all the U.S. You can also plan on getting involved by signing up for the official organization's newsletter and becoming an official Book Giver next year.

Involvement doesn't stop there! An independent panel of librarians and booksellers chose the titles of the books given away for 2014 (shown below). Support the authors who wave their royalty payments and the publishers who donate these special paper back copies made just for World Book Night.

One of the titles chosen for this year, Bridge to Terabithia, was one of the first books that made me love reading. I still remember how Mrs. Deerfield read that book to us in 5th grade, making even some of the boys cry. Check out the complete list of titles to see what books you can add to your reading list for 2014.

In our own backyard, The Salt Lake City Police Department (SLPD), Salt Lake Fire Department, mayor's office and SLC Library, along with The King's English and Sam Weller Book Works have helped get this event off the ground in Utah.

Betsy Burton, owner of The King's English and big supporter of World Book Night, said, "When you can get people who don't have easy access to books reading those books and having conversations about them, then you're really changing the world."

Let's change the world together!

Your Delicious Reads Contributor,

Robin