Dear all,

we hope you have already marked down the date for our next fairytale sleepover which shall take place on Friday, 31th March 2023. On the Night with Andersen website you are now able to sign up for the Night, just remember you must register anew for every year. You may use your existing password or decide on a new one if you prefer.

At the general meeting of the Children's Libraries Club SKIP CZR in Prague, the theme of this year's Night with Andersen has been determined: a part from the fairy tales of the Danish storyteller H.Ch.Andersen, we will commemorate the anniversary of czech author Božena Němcová.

All the fairy-best, we look forward to having you join us on the 2020 Night with Andersen!

Your Andersen mums Hanka and Mirka

Registration for 2023 now launched!

Dear friends,

we are happy to announce that you may now register your library, school, class... for the 23rd year of join night reading and adventures with books. Night with Andersen 2023 will take place on Friday, 31rd March 2023. Don't forget that you need to fill in a new registration form for each year of Night with Andersen (found in the top right corner).

Invitation for the night with Andersen

Dear Children! Dear Librarians! Dear Friends of Children´s Books!

Do you know what books are doing at night?

Have you ever heard about a night in a library?

We would like to let you know about a night of fairy tales which the children in the Czech Republic will experience for the twelveths time next year. On Friday, April 1st 2022, a Night with Andersen will happen in many towns and villages - at the place where imaginative librarians, clever teachers and educators prepare an interesting programme for the young audience with a night reading of fairy tales. This mutual event of the Association of Children´s Libraries of SKIP. The organisers also want to you about remind the children´s book festival which is celebrated in many world countries under the occasion of the birthday of the famous Danish fairy-tales writer Hans Christian Andersen.

In the last year, this event was organised in more than 1.690 places of our country. The Internet helped us to communicate and prepare competitions, quiz and programmes in many libraries in Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenija, Australia, Africa... and Czech schools without borders in many countries. Thanks to the Internet we knew what happened in each place. The libraries were visited by many different characters from the fairy-tales, and one mutual poem was written. There was also a search for a treasure in one library, in another library a discotheque was held, an in another one was a theatre and common singing. But reading of fairy-tales was not forgotten anywhere. They were read by children, librarians and in one library even read by the mayor.

In next year, you will be able to spend the night in the library on Friday, March 27th 2020. An attractive evening and night programme will be prepared for children: reading of fairy-tales, competitions will be held and lots of fun and adventures. This year an Internet chat will also take part, children can share their experience with their friends throughout the night. We believe that in this mutual electronic night conference, a new celebratory poem will evolve, as well as new friendships.

And this is a chance for you, dear friends from all over the world!

If you enjoy a new experience and if you like our idea, you can have a unique chance to participate! Join us! Help us to celebrate the International Book Day !!!

If you have the open space possibilities and energy to organise something for the children, you can register at our email address detske@knihovnabbb.cz; we will send you more information immediately. Only a little is required for a night outside of your home - a sleeping bag, a little pillow, a mattress, a book.... This night adventure is priceless....In our over-stuffed technological period, the public, as well as experts can ask why the children do not read much. As far as the psychological studies show, the most important aspect is from a personal example: in families where the adults read, children do not have any problems with reading either. And because we know that children from some families do not have the experience of "story-time", we try to offer them another possibility - a night reading to celebrate the International Children´s Book Day. The aim of our night is to increase children´s interest in reading, to show them a beauty of the spoken word and the charm of mutual "story-time" aloud. All in one magical evening in many places around our planet.

The children´s department, Mirka Čápová, Hana Hanáčková,

detske@knihovnabbb.cz www.nocsandersenem.cz

Knihovna B.Beneše Buchlovana, Velehradská 714, 686 01 Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic

Itinerary for the Night with Andersen, or what we should not forget

1. The library or school management agreement is necessary before we announce the Andersen Night. Possibly agreement from other people. Don't forget to inform the local police.
2. Inform the local press, radio and TV channel
3. Do promotion of the event, specify the numer of children, conditions for the common sleeping. It is up to you who you choose for the night. Somewhere winners of the competitions can be chosen or somewhere else the first succesful applicants are admited. Experienced organizers recommend children who are below 12.
4. We advice what to bring for the Night: except pyjamas, a sleeping bag, a cower, hygiene needs and a small cushion. Kids should bring slippers - the Night will be long and they would not feel comfortable in shoes. Medical insurance card is necessary.
5. We take responsibility for the child instead of parents during all the time when the kid is with us. Parents have to sign that they fully agree with having their child away from home. We ask for the phone contact and on the contrary we give them the organizer's phone. We say when exactly the event is going to finish and when parents will come to pick up their kid.
6. Reserve enough time for the Night preparations to prepare the evening programme. Except games, competitions, chat, it is good to have enough literary games, workshops, we have had a good experience with puppet theatre, disko, game competitions, fairy tales beings visit, night couragepath, torchlight procession...
7. Food and drink is individual. Each oganizer has to consider its possibilities. If they are able to bake cakes, sweets, prepare sandwiches, make tea or cocoa... Otherwise kids should bring a small refreshment and something for breakfast from home. We can take advantage of sponsorship as well.
8. Think of and choose the best place for sleeping - this should be carefuly cleaned and hoovered quiet place, so kids can have then sleeping bags there and sleep well at night.
9. Running water in a library or in a school classroom is pretty enough for necessary hygiene, washing hands and brushing teeth. We don't suppose that kids can get too dirty during the night. There is a toalet in each school and library for sure.
10. We wish you a very good, calm, safe night with exciting experiences, the night full of adventure. After all children fall asleep, send us, please, a short message about the things happened in your library or school during a fairy tale night. We appreciate messages about strange experiences, culinary art, sleeping animals, the youngest and the oldest overnight guests, night parades, Andersen's fairytales beings, about themselves, read fairy tales. We are waiting for the numbers of fireworks, mayors, and planted „fairy tale trees"...

We are asking everybody who are preparing this year Night with Andersen to send us brief info about the event, the number of kids, adults taking part in it, planted trees  until the end of the Night with Andersen - dead line is Monday morning after the ending of the night.

The e-mail adress is: detske@knihovnabbb.cz.

REMEMBER

who is not in the common statistics report is consider for being not sleeping here at all!!!

Only the report sent in time can help us to evaluate all things happened during the fairy tale night.

ABOUT

A Night with Andersen is an event by which Czech libraries try to win children over with regard to books and reading against the lure of more popular media. We are all aware that today's lifestyle does not favour children reading very much - books are in competition with many more action-filled temptations starting with couching in front of TV all the way to getting lost in the world of computer games. This situation is being criticized by the general public, we all think that today's children do not read. There have been many researches carried out on children's reading with alarming results, nevertheless, most of them do not offer a solution how to get out of the vicious circle. Many experts consider the development of reading habits a hopeless case.

And yet, a very simple solution is on hand (in the words of V.Mertin, one of Prague's well-known psychologists) - go by our own example and show children that reading is a great adventure. In those families where the parents read, the children do not have big problems with reading. And it was this method of giving a personal example that led us to the first night in the library in 2000 when we also wanted to celebrate the International Children's Book Day. It takes place annually on April 2, the anniversary of the birth of the famous Danish storyteller.

The first Night with Andersen took place at our library in Uherske Hradiste in 2000 when about 20 young readers took part in a night-time adventure in the form of fairy tale reading, games, competitions and lots of surprises. Together with our colleagues from Jicin, Sobotka, Letohrad and Zlin we prepared everything in our attic space in the children's department where in the late hours of the night we were visited by Sleepyhead the magic elf, and also by the venerable Shelf Bookborrower who took the children to Dreamland.

Thanks to the Internet we were able to send messages with greetings to Andersen himself as well as to all supporters of good books for children during this magical fairy tale night. The fame of the Night spread around Bohemia and Moravia thanks to the Children Books Club SKIP (Association of Library and Information Professionals of the Czech Republic). And it was thanks to this club that the idea of nighttime reading aloud spread to many libraries that celebrated the Children's Book Day by holding the first joint Night with Andersen in 2001. Big help for us was the Children Books Club SKIP and the Internet. Thanks to the Czech National library, Mgr. Zlata Houskova and Czech Technical University an electronic conference named Andersen was created. There were others who also helped - Ondrej Muller prepared an interesting online competition on the Albatros publisher's website which provided book prizes to the fastest puzzle solvers. For the first time the Nighttime sleepers' prize was awarded. Thanks to the Internet each participating "sleeping" library knew what was happening where, which books were read and even what food was eaten on the night. In that first year, in 2001, 40 libraries took part. Everywhere the idea was liked very much and spread further afield.

In 2002, children slept over in 72 libraries in our country as well as in Slovakian District library in Trnava, children also took part in sleepovers in schools and clubs. Over 1500 children and 300 adults spent a magical night full of fairy tales organized in commemoration of the Children's Book Day, in support of children's reading and for the first time to end the promotion campaign March - the month of the Internet. To prepare the event and to ensure its smooth running there were again many helpers - the joint Andersen conference established last year, Mr Jaroslav Winter and BMI, as well as many magazines - The Reader, Ikaros, SKIP bulletin...

Children were able to take part in competitions organized by the magazine Materidouska where they could win some nice books, the publishers Amulet organized an art and craft competition, young computer programmers created websites for the Webik competition. The association March - the month of the Internet awarded books, CD ROMs and a small web camera which was won by the Novy Bydzov Town library.

During the Night the children from Bohemia, Moravia and even Slovakia chatted online and wrote a Joint celebratory poem about the Night and Hans Christian Andersen.

In 2003, a big, now truly international Night with Andersen was held in 153 libraries, schools, care homes and children's clubs. Children in six libraries in Slovakia and four libraries in Poland also experienced the magical sleepovers. Information about the Night were sent through the Internet thanks to SKIP as far as USA, Alaska, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary and even the faraway island of Trinidad. The statistics of Magical Andersen Night 2003.

Many famous people sent greetings to the children, for example, a well-known actor and presenter sent these words to the children: "Dear girls and boys, I have heard that there will be a magical night in your library tonight. That is good news. When I was a little boy, we didn't have a television so we used to read a lot instead. I remember many magical nights spent reading in secret under the duvet with a torch, because I wasn't able to tear my eyes away from a book and I wanted to know how the story would end. I just wanted to tell you that all the fairy tale and adventurous characters and magical lands that you imagine in your heads will be hundred times better than in movies because they will be your own. I wish you that this magical fairy tale night will only be the start of many more magical nights spent with books. Have a lovely time! Best wishes from Marek Eben. 

Again, we were helped preparing for the Night by the association March - the month of the Internet, the Internet portal Atlas prepared a chatroom for the children, and once again there was a vote for the most favourite book of the nighttime readers. Another Joint Internet celebratory poem was written.

This year the event's logo was created and thanks to a financial contribution from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic we were able to produce some commemorative stickers. Special competitions were prepared by the magazines Bobří stopou, Mateřídouška, Rodina a škola. Many real writers or their ghosts as well as fairy tale characters, real animals or their fluffy toy friends visited the children, everybody had a great time.

And what is most important - nobody forgot about fairy tales. And that is very good, in the words of Zdenek Sverak: "All children need fairy tales. They are the water for the children's soul."