On
Tuesday, April 19, The Clarke held our second International Children’s
Book Read-In event. During the 3-hour event, over 60 people stopped by
the Park Library Baber Room to listen to 12 readers from all corners of
the globe read children’s books. The audience ranged in age from 5
months to over 90 years old with many college students and several
members of the greater CMU community stopping by to listen.The books that were read came from the Clarke’s collection of award-winning international children’s literature – with books in over 50 languages, the Clarke has quite a selection to choose from. The readers read a book in their native language and provided the audience with a translation.
All
of the readers did a fantastic job and the audience had the chance to
hear just a little of the languages that the readers grew up speaking.
It is incredible to think that all of the 11 languages we heard -- plus
many more -- are regularly spoken by members of the Central Michigan
University community. Being able to hear Polish, Arabic, Portuguese,
Japanese, and French plus Yoruba, German, Chinese, Indonesian, Swedish,
and Korean all in one afternoon was a great experience for those who
attended.