The night with Andersen is one of the undertakings organized by Czech libraries as a weapon in the competition for the interest of children in reading with other media. We all know that the contemporary way of life is not favorable to reading - books compete with the action allures of dumb TV watching and computer gaming. This situation is criticized by general public; we all tend to think that contemporary children do not read. There were numerous researches bringing alarming results, but few propose any solutions. Many specialists lament over the poor development of reading habits.
And still, there is a simple solution (as the famous Prague psychologist dr .V.Mertin claims) - give the children a personal example and show them that reading can be quite an adventure.
In families where parents read, children have no trouble reading. The idea of personal example in reading led us to the first night in the library in the year 2000. We also planned to celebrate the International children's book day, commemorated on the April 2, the birthday of the famous Danish writer H.Ch. Andersen.
The first Night with Andersen took place in 2000 in Uherské Hradiště library, where twenty young readers had a night full of adventure consisting of fairy tale reading, competition, games and surprise. The undertaking (which we prepared with our colleagues from Jičín, Sobotka, Letohrad and Zlín) took place in the loft of our children's department.
During the magic fairy tale night, we sent internet greetings to Andersen himself, and to all fans of good reading. The fame of the night spread across the country through the network of the Club of children libraries SKIP (http://www.nkp.cz/o_knihovnach/konsorcia/skip/KDKNocInfo.htm). It was thanks to the club that the idea of night reading spread to numerous libraries who celebrated the children's book holiday through the first Night with Andersen in 2001. Internet became one of our main tools. Thanks to Mrs. Zlata Houšková (Czech national library employee) and ČVUT, Andersen electronic conference was launched. Other people helped as well - Ondřej Müller prepared an interesting electronic competition on www pages of Albatros publishing house, with book prizes for those who came up with the fastest solutions. Through internet, all "sleeping" libraries knew what was happening, being read and eaten in all participating libraries. Forty libraries participated in - and the idea spread further.
In 2002, children stayed overnight in 72 places in Czech Republic (and in Krajská knižnica in Slovakia), not only in libraries, but also in schools and child care institutions. Over 1500 children and 300 adults experienced a magic night full of fairy tales, organized to commemorate the day of children's book, to help children reading in general and (for the first time) to end the promotion campaign entitled "March - the month of internet". We would also like to thank Andersen conference, Mr. Jaroslav Winter and BMI, and the editorial staff of numerous magazines (Čtenář, Ikaros, Bulletin SKIP) for their help.
During the night, a questionnaire competition took place. Children could compete for valuable books with Mateřídouška magazine, there was painting competition organized by Amulet publishing house, young programmers created web pages (for such prices as books, CD-ROMs and a small web camera, awarded by !March-the month of internet" association, the winner was Městská knihovna Nový Bydžov).
Czech and Slovak children had a chance to chat overnight, and they also created Ode to the Night and Hans Christian Andersen.
A truly large-scale, international night with Andersen took place in 2003 in 153 libraries, schools, and other child care institutions. The magic of common overnight staying was also shared by children in six Slovak and four Polish libraries. Thanks to SKIP system, information was spread through SKIP by e-mail to USA, Alaska, Sweden and Switzerland, Hungary and the distant island of Trinidad. Andersenian statistic of the NIGHT of magic, fairy tales, international collaboration, record-breaking…
Greetings were sent by numerous celebrities, e.g. the renowned actor and MC Marek Eben: "Dear girls and boys, I was told that tonight is your magic night in the library. That is good news. When I was a little kid, there was no TV and we used to read a lot. I remember having spent many magic nights, reading secretly under the blanket, because I could to stop reading and I had to know how the story ends. I want to tell you that when you read, all those fairytale and adventurous characters and countries you imagine will be much nicer than in the movies, because they will be yours. I wish you that this fairytale, magic night was just the first of many other magic nights you will spend with books. Enjoy your evening! ".
We received valuable help from "March - the month of internet" association, Atlas internet company provided a chat room, and the usual favorite book voting took place as well. The new undertaking logo was adopted and thanks to the financial contribution of the Czech Ministry of Culture we were able to print commemorative stickers. Special competitions for the night were prepared by Bobří stopou, Mateřídouška, and Rodina a škola magazines. Children were visited by contemporary writers, ghosts, fairy tale characters, living animals and pets. Everybody had fun! And, most importantly, fairy tales were omnipresent. As the Czech Oscar-winning director Zdeněk Svěrák once put it: "All children need fairy tales. Fairy tales are the moisture of infant soul."