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French culture minister Fleur Pellerin has said that France will stage its first major children’s and young adult literature festival in July next year.
The event will take place between the 15th and 31st July and be organized in partnership with national networks of facilities open to this age group, such as leisure centres, campsites and holiday clubs.
The aim is to take books to young people rather than the reverse in order to promote reading for pleasure and the place of books among their cultural pursuits, the ministry said in a statement. Pellerin’s predecessor Aurélie Filippetti first announced the festival at the Paris Book Fair last March, saying that libraries would be the focus of the event.
Speaking this week at the opening of the 30th children’s book and press fair in Montreuil, an adjacent suburb to Paris, Pellerin noted that production and sales of books for children and adolescents in France have doubled in 10 years. A total of 115 million copies were printed last year, and 6,000 new titles were published.
She added that the aim is for the ministry’s Premières Pages (First Pages) programme for tots and their families to reach 200,00 children within two years, double this year’s number, while the under-15’s represent 40% of visitors to public libraries.