Peter Rabbit has become one of the favorite characters in children’s literature since Beatrix Potter created this mischievous little rabbit over a hundred years ago in The Tale of Pete Rabbit, considered as the first modern English picture book. This delightfully engaging story and the charming adventures of lovable animals in Beatrix Potter’s 24 illustrated children’s tales have won the affection of readers around the world, regardless of their age.
2016 is the 150th birthday of Beatrix Potter, and Britain and America are holding many activities to celebrate this anniversary. To join this global event, the Tainan City Government is collaborating with Caves Books to hold the 2016 Tainan English Reading Festival, to promote English reading and encourage parents and children to learn and use English together. Our ultimate goal is that, by gaining better proficiency in English, our children will be more internationally competitive in an increasingly globalized world.
This year’s English Reading Festival features Having Fun Reading English in the World of Peter RabbitTM. From July to September, we invite all Tainan residents to take part in a series of fun-filled reading events and discover the joy of reading with Peter Rabbit. There is a reward program for children, who can participate in three different missions to earn points and win prizes. The missions are: (1) to read English storybooks or e-books and then write about each book, or draw a picture from it, in the Reading Notes of the English Reading Passports; (2) to learn English songs and sing them to family or friends; and (3) to attend The World of Peter RabbitTM Exhibition or one of over 100 presentations of Peter Rabbit’s Story Time hosted by Caves Books, Tainan Municipal Library, and 30 district libraries.
There are also 11 Talks on Learning English with Fun, a special mission of the reward program, in which celebrities, famous writers, and experts from different fields share their pearls of wisdom on methods of parent-child co-reading, English-learning strategies and experiences, ideas on how to best use picture books and online resources to nurture children’s English ability in daily life, and suggestions on how to provide children with suitable English reading materials. Participants get the chance to win some delightful little Peter Rabbit special gifts.
We hope that the Festival’s activities and events will help arouse our children’s interest in learning English, and assist them to achieve this most enjoyably and effectively.
To provide a richer selection of English reading resources for our city residents, Tainan’s 43 public libraries have purchased full sets of Peter Rabbit books and the newest Ladybird children’s readers published by Penguin Random House. The highly renowned Ladybird Readers series, designed for learners of English as a foreign language, has 28 reading books, with accompanying activity books, graded in four levels. The Peter Rabbit Readers feature a host of other familiar and much loved characters, like Peppa Pig, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. Our public libraries’ abundant collection of English books is a treasure trove for English learning. Tainan City Government invites parents and children to make good use of those learning resources and join the 2016 English Reading Festival for a summer of unforgettable enjoyment.