"Growing Up with a Book" is a national project for the promotion of reading culture. Its purpose is to motivate students of the last three years of primary school and secondary school student to read young adult literature by Slovenian authors and to encourage them to visit general public libraries. The project was first carried out by the Ministry of Culture in the school year 2006/2007, initially only in primary schools. When it was founded in 2009, the Slovenian Book Agency took over the management of the project.

Growing Up with a Book is carried out in cooperation with general public libraries, Slovenian primary and secondary schools, primary schools with an adapted programme, educational establishments for children and young people with special needs and primary and secondary bilingual schools in neighbouring countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy). We also cooperate with teachers of Slovenian at so-called Saturday schools (America, Australia), at supplementary Slovenian classes abroad (Belgium, BiH, Serbia, Croatia, France, etc.) and at European schools (Brussels, Luxemburg, Frankfurt, etc.).

The aims of the national project “Growing Up with a Book” are:

• to increase the accessibility of quality and original Slovenian young adult literature,
• to promote acclaimed Slovenian authors of young adult literature,
• to encourage students to read and visit general public libraries,
• to encourage publishers to include more contemporary Slovenian authors in their publishing programmes for young adults and to increase the share of published Slovenian young adult literature.

How is the project conducted

The project Growing Up with a Book is a joint effort of the Slovenian Book Agency, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education, Pionirska - Centre for Youth Literature and Librarianship at the Ljubljana City Library, the National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia, the Slovenian Public Libraries Association, the School libraries section at the Slovenian Library Association, the Society of School Librarians and the Slovene Writers' Association.

Initial preparations for the project, which coincides with the school year, start in spring with a public tender whereby the responsible expert committee selects two works from the young adult literary works applying - one for seventh grade primary school students and one for first year secondary school students.

Every year two different works are selected. The working group then prepares detailed information on the implementation of the project for schools and librarians, as well as the promotional materials and film presentations for both works in cooperation with the publishers and authors.

The official launch of the project Growing Up with a Book is every year on 8th September, the International Literacy Day. It is then that the selected books are delivered to all general public libraries in Slovenia.

All primary school and secondary school students receive their copy of the selected book on a visit to their nearest general public library organised for this occasion and which is part of the curriculum. In addition to receiving the book the visit also informs students about library and information science, the latest in Slovenian young adult literature and the selected book and its author. During the school year meetings of students and the authors of the selected books also take place in several schools across Slovenia, in the neighbouring countries and elsewhere around the world, and presentation video-materials are produced. These presentations are co-financed by the Slovenian Reading Badge Society - Slovenian Association of Friends of Youth and the Slovene Writers' Association. In addition, the Agency has for a number of years cooperated with the Basketball Federation of Slovenia to promote reading.

You can read the article about national project Growing up with a book, with the title ENCOURAGING YOUNG PEOPLE TO READ, published in Slovenian information magazin SinfO (September-October 2016).

Selected books by school year