Promoting reading 1
and staff together to talk about books and storie
s. In this context, the librarian is seen as an additional resource, who provides the preschool staff – in particular the reading representative – with certain skills and inspiration,. There has been a special emphasis on finding literature in the children’s mother tongues. The project Alfons öppnar dörren – om invandrarbarn och språk (Alfons opens the door – about immigrant children and languages), which ran from 2001–2003 in two residential areas with high densities of immigrants in Halland and targeted multilingual children and their parents, is cited as a source of inspiration. For a description of this project, see Pettersson (2004). Give me five Many reading promotion projects aim to establish deeper collaborations between preschools and libraries. One such project was Give me five: barn, böcker, berättelser (children, books, stories). Literature as an art form was emphasised in this project. Give me five was implemented with the support of the participating municipalities in Västerbotten County, the County Library in Västerbotten, Region Västerbotten and the Swedish Arts Council. The project ran in Västerbotten from autumn 2010 to spring 2014 and focused on five-year-olds. The project entailed a journey of discovery involving children, librarians and other adults close to the child in the world of the picture book. Both the children and teachers were encouraged to work with “important picture books of high artistic quality” and “often other books than the obvious choices”. A starting point was that a picture book is a work of art that “can be used to explore both your own world and the worlds of others”. One of the goals of the Give me five project was to focus on the child. An inventory of what the children wanted at many preschools was done before the project began. In addition, creativity as an educational method was emphasised – painting, dressing up, singing, rhyming, dramatizing, retelling, dancing, making collages or building models. Teachers of the arts, illustrators, authors and other professionals participated in continuing education courses and workshops on picture books and how they can be used in educational activities. The collaboration resulted in the staff of the libraries and the preschools accessing each other’s skills and the library becoming a fixture and familiar location for the children. The project also has its own blog. A report on the project was written by Ulla Wiklund (2014). STORYTELLING, PLAYING, READING BERÄTTA, LEKA, LÄSA (STORYTELLING, PLAYING, READING) is a large-scale project involving collaboration between schools and libraries, with a focus on children aged 1–3 years. The project was initiated by the NGO Läsrörelsen (Literacy Movement). It began in autumn 2013 and ran until spring 2015 in all 31 municipalities in the counties of Sörmland, Västmanland and Örebro. The project team chose to work with only one picture book over a longer period of time. The overall aim was to increase and stimulate children’s earliest encounters with literature. Among the project aims was to increase knowledge among preschools and libraries about children’s literature and how to teach it to small children, to stimulate parental engagement, and to extend and stimulate small children’s early encounters with literature. A research project, “Läsa med de yngsta (Reading with the very young)” was also linked to this project activity, and 42