UNESCO's choice of April 23rd was inspired by a beautiful legend. April 23rd is the anniversary of the death of Spanish writer Cervantes, and it is also a popular festival in Catalonia "Saint George's Day". Legend has it that the warrior George slew a dragon to save the princess and got a gift from the princess-a book, symbolizing knowledge and strength. On this day, Catalan women will send a book to their husbands or boyfriends, and men will return a rose. In fact, the same day is also the anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday and death, as well as the birthdays of American writer Nabokov, French writer Maurice Derohan, and Laxenes, the winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in Iceland, and so on, so it seems "justified" to become a global reading day. 1972, UNESCO issued a call to the whole world to "move towards a reading society", requiring all members of society to study. Books have become the necessities of life, and reading has become an indispensable part of everyone's daily life. From 65438 to 0995, UNESCO declared April 23rd as "World Reading Day", and devoted itself to promoting reading, publishing and protecting intellectual property rights all over the world. "We must be able to make books available to anyone anywhere." This is a sentence repeatedly emphasized by Ms. Milagros Del korol, Director of Creative, Cultural Industry and Copyright Department of UNESCO and President of UNESCO Press. Since its announcement, "World Reading Day" has received enthusiastic response from all walks of life in the world, and has developed into an activity aimed at young people, aiming at cultivating children's reading habits and humanistic spirit and guiding them to respect knowledge. Therefore, on April 23rd every year, writers, publishers, teachers, librarians, educators in private or public schools, students, humanists, mass media and book lovers all over the world turn the publicity activities of Reading Day into a lively and joyful festival. However, in China, this world-wide reading day has never been known to the public, let alone a festival. According to the survey of Sohu Reading Website in 2004, only 6% people know about World Reading Day, 27% people have heard of it but don't know the details, and 67% people have never heard of it. Reading has a great influence on people's growth, and a good book can often change people's life. The spiritual realm of a nation depends largely on the reading level of the whole nation. To build a harmonious society and further stimulate the reading enthusiasm of the whole people, let's read a good book seriously! [Edit this paragraph] On World Reading Day around the world 1997 65438+ 10, Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Culture, the State Education Commission, the State Science and Technology Commission, the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television, the Press and Publication Administration, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the All-China Women's Federation issued "On Organizing and Implementing the" Knowledge Project "in China, which is a project to develop libraries. In 2000, the leading group of the national knowledge project designated 65438+February as "National Reading Month" every year, which is a major project to implement the national knowledge project. In recent years, various publicity activities have been organized all over the country. In 2004, the National Leading Group for Knowledge Engineering entrusted library society of china to hold the annual National Reading Month. In order to implement the "knowledge project" with the aim of "advocating universal reading and building a reading society", library society of china will further stimulate the reading enthusiasm of the whole people, promote the construction of a learning society, a learning organization and a learning family, and prepare to hold large-scale activities nationwide this year to let the public know about World Reading Day. The local celebrations in Britain are the most comprehensive. They even advanced the reading day to March 6th, and held more than 1000 celebrations in schools, libraries and bookstores, such as story imitation contest, midday story time, various book fairs and so on. On this year's Reading Day, official website also held a writer's lecture/exchange meeting on the Internet, and broadcast reading-related programs. The local authorities even gave the children World Reading Day book tokens with a face value of 1, so that they could buy a favorite book in the member bookstores on Reading Day. The organizer specially published six new books for World Reading Day; We also set up a list of good books, which not only recommended 25 interesting books to children, but also provided a series of activity suggestions for teachers as teaching reference. The closest relationship between Mexico and World Book Day is the Guadalajara International Book Fair, which was founded 20 years ago. It is the largest book market in Spanish-speaking countries. Every year, there are a large number of publishers, literary agents, public relations readers, translators and librarians. Gather here for business or professional exchanges. Over 350,000 people (including 654.38 million children) will visit Guadalajara, the largest cultural festival in Latin America. Catalonia has a local tradition. On April 23rd every year, there will be many book fairs, large and small, and there will be many stalls on the street, which is very lively. Readers can get a rose for every book they buy, so on World Book Day, you will see many people walking down the street with roses, just like Valentine's Day, which is very interesting. South Korea issued "World Reading Day" stamps to spread the message of promoting reading and copyright. This year, a local story book will be published specially for World Reading Day to explain what copyright is to children, hoping to raise the awareness of the younger generation about copyright. In addition, the authorities issued "World Reading Day" stamps to spread the information of promoting reading and copyright. The publishing house sent 35,000 books to local schools for free on April 23rd. Hold a charity auction, and the proceeds from local artists' 15 works will be used to promote young people's reading. In addition, there are donation activities for new or used books. The Tokyo government of Japan issued a decree to designate April 23rd as Children's Reading Day. The long-term goal is to cultivate children's language, imagination and sensitivity, and help them "experience life" more deeply. In 2005, the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun made a survey on reading in China. The results are as follows: 14% reads every day 1 hour, 19% reads for half an hour, 10% reads for 20 minutes, 9% reads 10 minutes, and does not read. In France in 2004, 24% of French people read 12, and more than 55% of them read 1 to 12. Judging from the crowd, everyone reads 1 1 book on average. Israel In 2005, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun made a survey on the reading situation of the whole country. The results are as follows: 14% reads every day 1 hour, 19% reads for half an hour, 10% reads for 20 minutes, and 9% reads 10 minutes.