promoting the pleasure of reading

Lire et faire lire organization : reading through the generations

The idea began in a café. In 1999, successful writer Alexandre Jardin created, with Pascal Guénée (former chairman of the Relais civique created with Alexandre Jardin) an organization aimed at promoting the pleasure of reading in children in primary schools, leisure camps, crèches, libraries, etc. Lire et faire lire is inspired by an initiative that began in Brest in 1985 – retired people giving their time to manage a school library and familiarize children with reading. In turn, Lire et faire lire has been successful with a related concept of intergenerational solidarity. Supported by the French State and Regions, this national organization (annual budget of €342,224 in 2008) and its 70 departmental chapters (€444,500 in 2008) mobilized 11,500 volunteer retirees in 5,000 schools and educational centers. 250,000 children benefit from support from these readers. This is certainly a success, although Alexandre Jardin would like to amplify the movement further. “We need 100,000 readers”, was the hope he expressed on the i-Télé TV channel. 10 % of children starting secondary school do not have a mastery of French. “Reading together is a pretext for creating links”, he continued. While fighting illiteracy, the son of writer Pascal Jardin is convinced that reading remains the best way to appropriate words such as “fraternity”, “respect”, “integration” and “imagination”. In parallel, Lire et faire lire is behind several actions: public reading during a walk launched on May 31, 2009 from Saint-Malo to Bamako by the by the “white traveling poet and musician” Marc Roger (5,000 km); a words truck visiting 35,000 young people in 130 towns; a prize, Chronos, for the best youth and adult works about life paths; and the Sacs de pages. This operation, which began in 2005, sends, with the participation of 13 publishers, bags of books to vacation and leisure centers for children. For the fifth edition, 200 bags with five books each were distributed. At the end of August, Didier Jeunesse published a book, Les Deniers de Compère Lapin (Didier Jeunesse), part of the proceeds of which will go to the organization.