Love2read @ Crab Fest

Here are some photos of the activities Mandurah Libraries held at Mandurah's Crab Fest last weekend.  Crab Fest was a great success with 120,000 attending and everyone looking like they were having a great time.

Hundreds of people of all ages added messages to our Quote Me! Reading Wall then read the messages others had left there. 

The wall grew and grew,

and by the end of the event it was completely full on both sides.

Nearly a thousand people spread our reading activity throughout Crab Fest by wearing Quote Me! badges. The quotes covered a huge range of subjects and were from a very diverse range of sources including much-loved authors, philosophers, The Castle, Pink Floyd and The Simpsons! I have received reports of badges still being worn and as far afield as Joondalup.

But as much fun as these activities were, my favourite part of the weekend was when I was able to sit and simply read to young visitors to our marquee.

Even more enjoyable though was seeing parents and caregivers reading to the children in their care.

Throughout the National Year of Reading we are promoting the message that sharing a love of reading with with your children is one of the best things you can do to give them a head start in life.  Research into early brain development shows that a child’s ability to learn and to develop pre-literacy skills is greater if they are read to from birth.  Sharing books with children, even for as little as ten minutes a day, will help them to develop a love of reading that will be of benefit to them right throughout their lives.

As some of the Quote Me! badges put it:

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." — Emilie Buchwald

"The greatest gift is a passion for reading." — Elizabeth Hardwick

"The more you read, the more things you will know.The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr Seuss

"Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." — Mortimer Adler

"Reading and writing actually paid off!" — Homer Simpson