Statistic message from the Night with Andersen 2007

Night with Andersen 2007 is over, it is finished :-)

„You may have heard about the Night with Andersen… You haven’t? But it’s a pity! It is a night when all libraries with their treasures are opened by a miracle. When you are allowed to play among shelves full of fairy tales and adventure stories, when you can eat something sweet and even sleep there in your sleeping bag on the floor hoping that some of the mysterious story will appear your dream... At that uncanny time strange fairy tale trees grow up in library surroundings and new books are born. Children who supposed to be ordinary readers are becoming fairylike beings, heroes of their beloved books. And many, many other strange things happen that night. Sometimes it is dangerous or scary but like in every fairy tale it ends with happy end...” This pretty description of Night with Andersen was written by Ivona Březinová during her visit at Information centre on deafness Prague 5 – Stodůlky where heathy and handicapped children spent the night together with Pavlína Mladová.

Chidren slept in one Slovenian, 30 Polish and 65 Slovak libraries and schools, during the Night with Andersen several exchanges were organized (e.g. in Javornik decided to spend part of the European night in a Polish library in Paczkow, 10 children stayed in Petřvald), Czech and Polish was spoken in Český Těšín, Slovak and Hungarian in Štúrovo, sign language was used in Prague 5 – Stodůlky.

On Friday 30^th March 2007 the biggest ever common reading was experienced by 18,886 children and 3,655 adults in 590 registered places in Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Poland and Slovenia. The night was spent in one Slovenian, 30 Polish and 65 Slovak libraries and schools. The original Czech idea was also joint by kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, youth centres, civic communities, leisure centres, hospitals, fire services and hiking groups. Higher occurence of spirits was recorded over Bohemian plains and mountain regions in central Europe, e.g. Hans Christiam Andersen was seen 93 times, Josef Lada more than 107 times,... Astrid Lindgren, Božena Němcová, Jaroslav Foglar and many others who are so beloved arrived among us from their writers’ heaven. Together with 256 other places we agreed on reading the same book – this time it was Charlota’s web. We could also register visits of 260 mayors, city managers, members of parliaments, firemen, policemen, astonomers, school and library headmasters. The managing director of The National Library Prague, Vlastimil Ježek, and many actors of Czech theatres were reading too. Writers Ivona Březinová and Ludvík Vaculík, psychologist Václav Mertin sent their greetings. Gabriel Filcík drew pictures and postcards.

During that evening and night 223 new fairy tale trees were planted or created so our fabulous forest is made of 700 trees. Our young readers thought about ill children, they made a contribution to hospital in Malejovice and 40 dolls for UNICEF.

This year’s Night with Andersen completed 59 processions with lights and several fireworks, several school and library newspapers were issued. Some fashion shows and fancy balls, carnivals, balls in slippers were organized. Children learnt to dance waltz and letkis. Nobody could imagine teachers and librarians changing into circus artists but the success was amazing. Birthday of Astrid Lindgren was celebrated in numerous places, number 93 is not final, we met Pipi Longstocking, Emil and others. Imagine how popular Andersen was himself when he appeared at one moment on several distant places. Foe example – we can see the dark river Berounka flowing wide and calm to a near weir, bonfires in its banks and suddenly a boat appears with a mysterious figure on it. Hans Christian has arrived to thank children for their greetings sent in bottles last year. In Týnec nad Sázavou magicians let out colourful bubbles to make our world beautiful. Many new poems were written to be collected in a book and before it is published let’s listen to children from Olomouc:

We are going to talk a little, maybe play a bit

When we start to read they are here and sit

Next to Andersen, being true or dream, who would care.

More than 20 thousand fans of children books can proclaim this year to be very successful. From some letters: “we went to bed with you for the fourth time and every night was beautiful. But this one was exceptional. No one thought of sleeping because we were so impressed...“we did not argue, we were pulling the same end of the rope..” “we librarians can launch a reading epidemic. Aren’t we great?...”

At many places they cannot wait till the next fairytale night and they repeat it several times for all who are interested. On behalf of them we want to send you one greeting from Světlá nad Sázavou: “We are having another night as early as 25^th May (it is fully booked) and children are applying for September. We could change our library into a guest house At three librarians. Since next week we are having meetings with our applicants because they have to deserve the place. This time we are not staying in our library we are going to sleep in a nearby castle with kind permission of its warden....” Another report: “In the Brdy forest we planted a fairytale tree while reading classics...”

Even this year before it ended some nifty organizers managed to register on website to have the lowest register number...J And as a librarian Jana wrote: ...” a year will be quickly over and Andersen 2008 is already peeking at us. So we want to be recorded just now.” So it seems that spirit of the Night with Andersen is alive and children books will survive the year 2008.

From our totally downfallen and partly virus infected computer we have collected 5,846 news.

Yours Mirka Čápová, Hana Hanáčková, detske@knihovnabbb.cz

Knihovna Bedřicha Beneše Buchlovana, Velehradská 714, 686 01 Uherské Hradiště

If you are interested and want to join us as a participant or organizer, here you can find more information: http://www.knihovnabbb.cz/cz/noc_s_andersenem