A ground cover and a backpack full of books, a relaxed and playful atmosphere – that’s all you need to open up the imaginary world of books to young people ages five to 12! Thanks to a collaboration with the Amis de la bibliothèque de Montréal (Friends of the Montréal Library), enthusiastic animators flock into the streets to meet with children.
Every summer for the past 25 years, animators have read to hundreds of children throughout the parks and in the courtyards of low-income housing complexes in many of the city’s boroughs. In the cold weather, they tell their stories inside low-income housing complexes and at centres for young people, families and daycare.
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Ever since it began in 1982, this activity has been an outstanding success among children from underprivileged and multicultural backgrounds. Animators have read more than 200,000 stories to some 100,000 children from five to 12 years of age. Livres dans la rue (Books outside) reaches children right where they live.
"These are young people who do not often go to libraries and who have little opportunity to read. Livres dans la rue (Books outside) provides them with access to books and, as a result, helps to develop a taste for reading within them," explains Christiane Charette, librarian and person responsible for the Service du développement culturel, de la qualité du milieu de vie et de la diversité ethnoculturelle’s project.
This project was made possible thanks to the commitment of the Amis de la Bibliothèque de Montréal and a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
