The National Central Library (NCL) will host a two-day carnival in Taipei next month as part of the annual Taiwan Reading Festival and feature books presented by Taiwan’s diplomatic allies for the first time, according to the library Monday.
The first day of the carnival at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park on Dec. 3 will see music performances, arts and crafts, storytelling, and English books presented by the embassies of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), Saint Christopher (Saint Kitts) and Nevis, and Belize.
The Embassy of St Vincent and the Grenadines in Taipei, ROC Taiwan will take part in ‘The 2022 Taiwan Reading Festival” on Saturday 3rd December from 10:00 am to 5pm
SVG Ambassador to Taiwan Andrea Bowman told CNA that her country’s booths at the carnival will feature three trained Vincentian teachers of English based in Taiwan reading books by Vincentian authors to the Taiwanese public.
We will be “using excerpts from the books to say something about Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and to entice the children as well, so we are going to have hands-on children’s activities,” Bowman said.
The books to be used are; SHAPE OF A WARRIOR by Peggy Carr; BROWN SUGAR AND SPICE by Betty Peter; FLIPPITY FLOPPITY WING by Hayden Billingy; NIA’S SUMMER VACATION IN THE CARIBBEAN by Danielle Fairbairn-Bland and CALL IT OUR VILLAGE by Margaret Soleyn
“We’re going to have the children engage with the text in various ways, maybe drawing, getting ideas and magic from reading.”
The theme of this year’s Festival is ‘ Embrace the Beautiful New World; Open a New Promising Future through Reading’, and our Embassy is capitalising on the promise which lies herein.
The Embassy is excited about the invaluable cross-cultural and language-expansion avenues provided by this year’s Festival.
The carnival will continue Dec. 4 in areas surrounding the NCL with talks by iconic actors and authors, including Taiwanese actress Brigitte Lin (林青霞) and Taiwanese writer Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇), NCL Director-General Tseng Shu-hsien (曾淑賢) said.
The Taiwan Reading Festival, which is typically held on the first weekend of December, had between 50,000 and 70,000 visitors last year, and Tseng said it could draw as many as 100,000 visitors this year.
