The announcement of the National Year of Reading 2012 is the beginning of an ambitious new campaign to help turn Australia into a nation of readers.
According to the 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, nearly half of all Australians (46%) don’t have the literacy skills they need to cope with everyday life and work. By creating a reading culture in the home and at school, we can improve the lives of future generations of Australians. Recreational reading has the power to influence wellbeing in the way it inspires, informs, transforms, and influences our hearts and minds.
One book will become the centre of the campaign, with Alison Lester's Are We There Yet? the basis for One Book One Country. Writers of adult and young adult fiction are being asked to pick up the themes in Lester’s journey around Australia to create an anthology of stories for older readers.
For more information, head to love2read.org.au.
