YPG Cares About LitWorld: World Read Aloud Day 2013
On a dark-because-daylight-savings-time-had-not-kicked-in-yet and mildly damp night in New York City, 80 story-hungry children descended on Books of Wonder demanding stories be read aloud. It was the culmination of World Read Aloud Day in New York City, a day-long event on Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 featuring authors, artists, workshops and fun activities for children all over the city to promote literacy. The ravenous children arrived on a double decker bus and were carefully herded by LitWorld and YPG volunteers into the store to the unsuspecting victims authors waiting to read their own stories aloud. Storytellers included NY Times bestselling author and illustrator Greg Foley, Brett Helquist, and author John Kloepfer. Each voracious kid was then allowed to choose one book of their own to take home for a midnight snack, because the pretzels and cake provided by LitWorld could not satisfy their deep hunger for stories.
To pacify the horde, LitWorld sacrificed the Story Pirates, a professional group of actors who perform plays written by students around the country. The Story Pirates gave a special improv performance of a story created right on the spot by Pirates and gluttonous students alike. The story featured a Librarian Cheetah and his friends Peter Rabbit the Terrible No Good Rapper and Nick the Pig.
After gorging themselves on improbable antics, hanging plot threads and a climax that had the Pirates literally rolling in the isles, the wonderful, crazy night ended on a peaceful note. Volunteers and children formed a circle and sang an African tribal harvest song symbolizing gathering and consuming the fruit of delicious and nutritious books.
Worldwide at least 793 million people remain illiterate. YPG Cares applauds LitWorld in its efforts to support reading and literacy. For more information about World Read Aloud Day, visit http://litworld.org/worldreadaloudday.
Aubrey Poole got her start as an editor correcting her friends’ grammar in high school, an effort which naturally guaranteed instant popularity. After a brief internship in the marketing department at Penguin UK, she started her first real job as a news assistant at The Real Estate Journal in Los Angeles. But when she was offered a position as a reporter, Aubrey thought it would be less scary to move cross-country to New York City and try to break into the book publishing industry.
Aubrey is now an associate editor at Sourcebooks, acquiring children’s books from picture books through young adult. Her first YA novel, Send by Patty Blount, was a Junior Library Guild pick, and she hopes to continue shamelessly courting librarians with her forthcoming middle grade novelNinja Librarians.
