Living books for International Literacy Day in Red Deer

The Red Deer Public Library and the Adult Literacy Program are hosting a unique event on September 7th.

In honour of International Literacy Day, a Human Library will be hosted from 6 – 8 p.m. at the Dawe Branch.

Adults can come out and interact with the volunteer “living books” to gain insight in to their tales.

“The idea is to encourage people to check out living books. So when they come to the library instead of borrowing a [paper] book they’re going to be checking out a living book with living experience and diverse backgrounds and so on,” said Adult Literacy Program Manager Alla Mysko-Henke.

The Human Library idea was formed by Mysko-Henke while working with Dawe Branch Manager Tatiana Tilley. Mysko-Henke said it’s a great project and Tilley had the prior experience and connections to be able to pull it together as a successful event.

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“We were thinking about what we could do to celebrate international literacy and the idea of a human library came up,” said Mysko-Henke, adding that it’s a great way to celebrate cultural diversity.

There will be approximately 12 “living books” on hand for the evening, each of them with a different background or a different culture to share with those present for the event.

“We will have one person talking about Ukraine Russia conflict and right now that is stirring a lot of questions, so we have someone giving some historical background. We will have a German Canadian who will have that conversation with people trying to break the stereotypes and tell people what it’s like to be a German in Canada.”

The living books are volunteers for the event and Mysko-Henke said the majority of them have something they want to share to help break prejudices or stereotypes that have plagued their lives. “They want to share what background they came from and what they’re proud of.”

While literacy refers to the ability to read and write, Mysko-Henke said there are many more faceets to literacy than just that.

“[It’s] way more than just the learning of reading and writing. It’s being able to do different things and the list is really long. But it also associates with the idea of educating and increasing other people’s literacy. Being able to communicate with people is another skill that you are acquiring.”

She added that it’s great to be able to include many cultural backgrounds in the event when celebrating it at an international level.

The event begins at 6 p.m. and Mysko-Henke added that there will be a prize draw for participants who read four books throughout the evening as well.

“The theme for the event is ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, so that speaks to what the purpose of the event is. It’s to hear about a certain country and not just draw an image of what we have seen on the news or heard from others. This will be a great opportunity to meet these people face to face and experience the living part of it.”