Growing Up with a Book is a national project promoting reading culture, aimed at 7th-grade elementary school students and first-year high school students. The project aims to motivate primary and secondary school students to read young adult literature by Slovenian authors and encourage them to visit public libraries.

The project was initiated by the Ministry of Culture in the school year 2006/2007, initially only for primary schools. The Slovenian Book Agency of the Republic of Slovenia (JAK RS) took over its management upon its establishment in 2009. It is implemented in cooperation with public libraries, Slovenian primary and secondary schools, primary schools with adapted programs, educational institutions for children and youth with special needs, and primary and secondary schools in neighboring countries (Austria, Hungary, Italy). The project also involves teachers who teach Slovenian in so-called Saturday schools (in America and Australia), at supplementary classes abroad (Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, France, etc.), and in European schools (Brussels, Luxembourg, Frankfurt, etc.).

The goals of the national project Growing Up with a Book are:

• To increase the accessibility of quality and original Slovenian young adult literature.
• To promote outstanding Slovenian authors of young adult literature.
• To encourage reading motivation among students and their visits to public libraries.
• To motivate publishers to include more contemporary Slovenian writers in their publishing programs for young people and to increase the share of published original Slovenian young adult literature.

How is the project conducted?

The project is managed by JAK RS in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education, the Pionirska – Competence Centre for Youth Literature and Librarianship at the Ljubljana City Library (MKL), the National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia, and the Association of Public Libraries. Representatives from these institutions form the project working group.

Preparations for the project begin in the spring months with a public tender, through which the responsible expert committee of JAK RS selects two works of Slovenian young adult literature—one for seventh graders and one for first-year high school students. Each year, two new works are selected. The working group prepares detailed information about project implementation for schools and librarians, along with promotional materials and presentation films for both works, in collaboration with publishers and authors. The official start of the project, aligned with the school year, occurs in the autumn when the selected books are delivered to all public libraries in Slovenia.

All seventh graders and first-year high school students receive a free copy of the selected book during a special visit to their nearest public library, which is included in the annual work plan of Slovenian primary and secondary schools. The library visit includes not only the receipt of the book but also an introduction to library information skills, an overview of the latest young adult literature, and presentations by the authors and about the book. Throughout the school year, meetings between students and the authors of the selected books are organized at various Slovenian schools and in neighboring countries and beyond. These appearances are co-financed by the Reading Badge Society of Slovenia (ZPMS) and the Slovene Writers' Association.

You can find the article titled Encouraging Young People to Read, published in the Slovenian information magazine SinfO (September-October 2016), which provides insights into the national project Growing Up with a Book.

For more information about the Growing Up with a Book project, please contact Sabina Tavčar at sabina.tavcar@jakrs.si.

Selected books by school year