Reading badge is a Slovenian movement which has been encouraging children and teenagers to read for more than 45 years. The principal aim of this movement is to develop reading skills, and to stimulate the cultivation of reading and literary culture among children and the young.
Experts on juvenile literature and literary didactic, librarians who work with children and teenagers in public and school libraries, Center for Juvenile Literature and Librarianship of Ljubljana City Library in Ljubljana, the Slovene IBBY section (International Board on Books for Young People), Slovene Reading Association, Slovene Writers΄ Association, the magazine Otrok in knjiga (»A child and a book«), publishing houses, bookshops etc. take part in this movement. Within the framework of the Reading Badge and several other reading projects which encourage reading (Bookpupas, Reading knapsack), the librarians of the Maribor Public Library work with children groups from kindergardens and schools. They tell them tales all year long and enrich their literary choice. At the end of the season, when all projects have come to an end, there is an award ceremony at the library, at which children, their parents, relatives, mentors and teachers take part. Sometimes our story-tellers also visit their young public in the kindergarden or at school.
