Box sets containing several Books for children aged 8 to 11 are being distributed to certain families. These are 3,500 “literary magic boxes”. An operation organized a few days before the Children's Book Fair in Montreuil which takes place from November 27 to December 2.
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This year's box set contains three beautiful albums by authors for 8-11 year olds, on the theme of the General Dream and poetry, as well as a writing and drawing kit and a new card game imagined by two artists .
“We launched this operation at the time of the Covid pandemic, because the Show could not be held physically and it worked really well. The children take care of it, it means a lot to them“, notes the director of the Children's Book Fair in Montreuil, Sylvie Vassolo.
The Family Allowance Fund (CAF) offers these boxes to 3,500 families in this department of mainland France where poverty is the highest. The Children's Book and Press Fair is responsible for designing these boxes, for “stimulate the imagination and play with the family around language“.
“We have already set up a library with books that the children have chosen themselves and which they borrow all year round.“, explains Laura Pfohl. She is a coordinator at the Lez'arts dans les Murs association, which provides homework help. The manager is delighted with this initiative: “Receiving these boxes is different: they take books that are truly theirs, like gifts.“
Books are purchased in bookstores. Then the boxes are distributed, from October to December, to children who benefit from homework assistance in 32 towns in Seine-Saint-Denis. In Montreuil, 18 “literary magic boxes” were recently given to children cared for by the Lez'arts dans les Murs association which manages a shared garden near the priority district of the city's policy Bel Air – Grands Pêchers.
“When we offer them, they have something of the order of pride, a sense of wonder, at having truly beautiful books in their home.“, enthuses the employee of this association. “And at each delivery, it's a ceremony: we involve the parents, even those who are not readers“.
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A distribution taking place against the backdrop of the 40th anniversary of the Children's Book Fair. This international meeting of children's literature brings together nearly 200,000 visitors to Montreuil each year.
