Celebrating Hans Christian Andersen’s Birthday in Launceston

IBBY celebrates International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) on the anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday – April 2. How fitting that some keen IBBY members, who are also active in CBCA Tasmania, chose this day to bring lovers of children’s books together and test their knowledge whilst having fun and raising money for to support children affected by war, disorder and natural disasters.

To celebrate this date and to raise money for IBBY Children in Crisis Fund, a small group of volunteers, namely Nella Pickup, Carol Fuller and Jennie Bales, joined together to organise a Children’s Literature Trivia Night.

By enlisting the aid of Launceston book seller, author and teacher, Damien Morgan, the event was able to be held at Stories Bookshop. What more fitting site for such a quiz?  Especially as Stories has a most welcoming, ‘come in, sit down and read a book', atmosphere.

Quiz questions were sourced from Joanna and Jenni from IBBY West Australia and supplemented with a ‘Guess the Extract’ and a picture puzzle drafted by Damien. who also served as MC for the quiz. We added a set of Tasmanian author questions for Heads and Tails and the question that provided the winner was:-  A Tasmanian author has won the IBBY Ena Noel Award. True or False? The answer being Kate Gordon TRUE (in 2016 ).

Catering provided nibbles and sandwiches for the participants who had come straight from work. Most were teachers, teacher librarians or librarians and mostly acquainted so that the atmosphere was friendly and convivial. There were two teams from local schools as well as some conglomerate teams of retired teacher/librarians, children’s literature enthusiasts and Friends of the Launceston Library.

Despite a relatively small group of quizzers, the evening was animated and lively. Teams of six vied for the winning prize; a piccolo of bubbles and a book for each team member. The wooden spooners received, predictably, a wooden spoon and a bag of chocolates. The winning team with an almost perfect score was ‘The Hagley Hens’ from Hagley Primary School.

The Hagley Hens strut their stuff - Congratulations!

Funds were raised via a modest entry fee and ‘Buy a Book’ where book covers were displayed and ‘sold’ for $10. There were various surprise prizes associated with each book cover. Prizes were sourced from the committee’s own stock of precious items and from books donated by Patsy Jones and Robyn Morrow. Book and wine prizes were most popular.

The questions proved to be quite difficult, Damien’s extracts being particularly hard to identify. However, some of the contestants were really on the ball and had a most impressive knowledge of current children’s and YA literature. Obviously, those with a library background library had the upper hand – something to think of when forming a team for a future children’s literature quiz night.

Everyone had a great time and expressed the hope that we could look forward to similar events.

Carol Fuller  (CBCA)

Editor's note: What a great event and meaningful way to celebrate International Children's Book Day. To keep up to date with global and local events, why not consider joining IBBY Australia. Discover IBBY, written by Dr Robin Morrow AM, posted earlier this year, provides an informative snapshot.