New Cross Learning “spicing up” World Book Day

Pic: Evelyn Giggles Flickr

Pic: Evelyn Giggles Flickr

New Cross Learning is organising a book exchange on World Book Day in attempt to encourage reading by “adding a little spice”.

Formerly known as the New Cross People’s Library, they will be hosting the exchange on Thursday, March 7. On their website, New Cross Learning said: “We are trying to encourage reading by making it fun and inviting, by adding a little spice to such an everyday occurrence.”

Running from 6.30pm to 8.00pm, the Book Exchange will provide an opportunity for the public to bring old books to swap for new ones, in an effort to encourage them to explore new reading material.

During the same week, the community learning space will also host Extreme Reading – a photo competition featuring “creative and fun” images of people reading in peculiar and extreme positions and situations.

Entries are to be submitted by February 28 and the winning pictures will be framed and exhibited in the New Cross Learning gallery on March 7.

In a Basic Skills Survey carried out by Opinion Research Business, Lewisham was estimated to have 23.4 per cent of people between the ages of 16 and 60, with low literacy levels. This is a little better than the national level of 24 per cent.

The event itself is a write-in for the Bridport Prize, the literature competition founded by Bridport Arts Centre in 1973. Its mission is to encourage and promote emerging poetry, short stories and flash fiction writers.

New Cross Learning is wholly volunteer-run and is supported by the charity Bold Vision, which seeks to make Telegraph Hill “an even more amazing place to live”.

By Olivia Cassano

 

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