....As We Celebrate April 23 Every Year As World Book Day!”





By Joe Kingsley Eyiah, OCT, Brookview Middle School, Toronto-Canada





"Our goal is clear – to encourage authors and artists and to ensure that more women and men benefit from literacy and accessible formats, because books are our most powerful forces of poverty eradication and peace building. "-Irina Bokova





In a world that sometimes seems over-burdened with conflict, World Book Night stands out as a precious beacon. It has two messages: one is that reading is sheer joy and the other is that the act of giving is intrinsically good. The energy that Jamie Byng and his team have brought to this lovely project is astonishing and wonderful. I hope this tradition goes on as long as books are made and read.-Alexander McCall Smith





Apart from oral tradition and artifacts, books have become the best means of preserving knowledge and cultures in our world. From the ancient papyrus and scrolls to the modern day eBooks, writing has been the permanent and organized way of preserving knowledge/information! Well written books have helped readers become what they are today-from the Good Book (the Bible), the Koran, textbooks to soul-touching novels and simple recipe-books! These printed pages have turned people’s lives around! John Milton simply puts it this way, “reading maketh a man.” How can we read if there are no books? And how can there be books if there are no authors, editors, publishers, artists (book illustrators) or booksellers? World Book Day/Night which is celebrated on April 23, yearly, is to honor the aforementioned individuals who are associated with the book industry.





According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “23 April is a symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors, such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo. It was a natural choice for UNESCO's General Conference, held in Paris in 1995, to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those, who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity. In this regard, UNESCO created the World Book and Copyright Day.”





World Book Night celebrated on the same day (especially in UK and Ireland) on the other hand is run by The Reading Agency as one of their programmes. The Reading Agency is an independent charity with a mission to give everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become confident and enthusiastic readers.





The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that 774 million people worldwide, including 123 million youth, cannot read or write, and illiteracy can often be traced to the lack of books. Most people in Sub-Saharan Africa do not own a single book, and schools in this region rarely provide textbooks to learners.





Let’s Cultivate the Habit of Reading:

Did you know that READING can keep your mind active and engaged well into old age? Reading is considered one of the best habits that one can inculcate in him. It leads one to knowledge!

The old Good Book says that ‘for lack of knowledge my people perish’. Yes, knowledge is power. Though knowledge comes to us in many forms, it best comes in the pages of a book. However, we won’t know until we read what is written in the pages. Therefore reading is the key to knowledge. It is said that the one who reads is a leader!



As a parent and a teacher by profession I can’t overemphasize the importance of reading to the teaching and learning process. Teachers always encourage their students to read. And students who read a lot excel in the academics. It is good to catch them young with reading! My experience as teacher both in Ghana and in Canada has shown me that most Ghanaian children either don’t like reading or are not encouraged to read. The root of this problem is that most Ghanaians (adults) have not cultivated the good habit of reading. Many Ghanaians read only when they are going to write tests which require reading or when they go to church; even at church many listen to the good readers!

My observations in the classroom since 1973 have revealed that the best readers were and still are students who saw/see their parents reading. I therefore encourage all and sundry (especially educated Ghanaians) to cultivate the habit of reading.





Interestingly, books are now even made available online so readers can find some good ones to read without going to the library to borrow books to read.





May I use this opportunity of the World Book Day celebration to appeal to all Ghanaian parents to encourage their children to read for, ‘reading makes a person knowledgeable’. Let’s make our children more knowledgeable by reading to them if possible and get them to read to us frequently. There are a lot of good books out there for reading.



Governments must also encourage the production of books by investing more in authors, publishers, libraries and all those who are associated with the book industry in their countries. As a graduate of the Book Industry Section of the College of Art at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, I call on the government of Ghana to create more favorable climate in Ghana for the book industry in the country to grow from strength to strength