The Superpower of Books
The future of Poland depends on how far we succeed in raising the level of readership together. We will succeed if we work together towards a common goal.
That is why we’ve started The Superpower of Books campaign, which main point is the publication of Superpower of Books. A Handbook for Promoting Reading, published in 2021. It is an attempt to define this goal and the paths that can lead to its achievement – increasing the level of reading in Poland.
We communicate the importance of reading to children from the very begining of their lives. We promote books amongst parents, teachers and librarians, knowing how important it is for kids to be raised in safe, happy, reading environment, which also icludes closeness, warmth and safety for children.
We based it on medical research that shows the difference in childrens’ growth and development of their brains when they have the opportunity to be raised in the book culture, and their parents, guardians and other grownups read to them. By promoting reading we also mean to give children the access to the books, that often are missing in many Polish households.
Our handbook it’s not a learned text but a manual, the result of an effort to bring together in concise and accessible form the ABCs of what is needed to promote literacy in Poland.
It answers the questions:
– Why disseminate reading?
– How to approach it in order to achieve change on a national scale?
– What are the proven methodologies?
Promoting reading in Poland is requires cooperations with many other players, not only from publishers and book market. We try to initiate contacts between local governments, non-governmental organizations and business, because we believe that cooperation always brings good results.
If we work together on this cause, we will succeed. We very much hope that our efforts will begin to build a wide network of cooperating professionals, institutions, companies and people of good will!
The Superpower Of Books was published thanks to cooperations of Universal Reading Foundation with polish publishers and institutions: Krakow UNESCO City of Literature, Wrocław UNESCO, City of Literature Polish Chamber of Books and Olga Tokarczuk Foundation. That was our first publication and had its continuation: The Superpower Of Books at home, The Superpower Of Books at Preschool soon after that and The Superpower Of Books Reading Dad in 2023. With publishing next parts of the handbook we managed to reach more specific groups of people who can promote reading in their environment – parents, teachers, librarians who work with children, also dads and (non)reading men.
