Reading pleasure in Pettenbach: New book club inspires young people!

Reading pleasure in Pettenbach: New book club inspires young people!

Pettenbach. In the community, reading in children and adults is becoming increasingly popular, especially in the cooler season when many resort to books. In order to inspire the student body for literature, a new Book Club was launched.

In the past eight years, the parish of Pettenbach's public library has recorded a steady increase in users. "At the moment we have around 300 active readers and 7,000 lending a year. It is particularly gratifying that many of these readers are children and their families," explains the head of the library, Augustine Grammerstätter. The library team consists of twelve committed members.

Return to reading

Grammerstätter notices a special increase in small readers. "Once a week, a group from the kindergarten visits the library to browse and borrow books, which puts many parents in contact with the library." In addition, events such as children's readings are offered regularly to further promote interest.

An important factor is the role model function of the parents. "Families in which a lot is read, the children automatically motivate to read more themselves. Reading aloud is often the first step," said Grammerstätter. While children often read until the end of elementary school, the youth often lose interest, which is mainly due to the strong competition through digital media.

To counteract this, 14-year-old Julia Ortner-Winter founded the Book Club. She works in the library and likes to read passionately. "Books offer the opportunity to immerse yourself in different worlds and discover things that you don't experience in everyday life," she says, reporting her personal reading experiences that she gained through her mother and English teacher.

Read and discuss

The Book Club meets regularly in the library, where the participants have the opportunity to propose books. Two books are selected from the suggestions, which then coordinated to determine the next book. Julia also emphasizes the importance of the local bookstores and, if you are interested, offer bulk orders about it.

The dynamics that already exist in reading circles for adults is to be transferred to the young people. "If we can arouse the interest of the young people, it would be great," says Grammerstätter and is optimistic about the idea of ​​strengthening the contact with the youth and taking into account their wishes.

In the Book Club, seven young people are currently active, although the discussions are not just about fantasy literature. "Many are also interested in other genres such as novels or crime novels," explains Julia. While social media are becoming more important, these influences in the club are currently rather irrelevant. "It is often not so important to us yet," says the young book lover.

For those interested, there is the possibility to contact the e-mail address Ortner.jul@gymschlierbach.at to receive information about the next meetings. With this new offer in Pettenbach, a valuable contribution to promoting reading culture is made by discovering young people the joy of reading in community.