International Society for Historical and Systematic Research on Schoolbooks

What do children’s books and school textbooks have in common? Young readers, and the Leipzig Book Fair as a common marketing tool. The Leipzig Book Fair authorities have decided to concentrate their activities in the area of education under the new label “Focus Education.” Two new projects will promote this label at the Book Fair 2012 (March 15-18, 2012): the “Leipzig Reading Compass” and the “Textbook of the Year” award.

The Leipzig Reading Compass is a joint project of the Leipzig Fair and the Reading Foundation (Mainz). It selects and recommends 30 titles for reading promotion from among the approximately 8.000 books for children and adolescents published between March 2011 and March 2012, ten each for the age groups 2 to 6, 6 to 10, and 10 to 14. In the last category (Books and media for children aged 10 to 14), educational material for teachers will be developed for the study of the selected titles in class. The Reading Compass books will be selected by experts from the Reading Foundation and an independent panel representing pre-school and school education as well as libraries and the book trade.

The Textbook of the Year award is a project conjointly realized by the Leipzig Fair and the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (Braunschweig). One outstanding title will be selected in each of three subject groups, based on quality and degree of innovation. The decision will be made by a small panel of experts, based on titles submitted directly by the textbook publishers. In addition, a teachers’ prize will be awarded, based on the online votes of teachers. It will be given to the textbook which has proven most useful to teachers in everyday class.

It remains to be seen if the common label of “education” attached to both children’s books and textbooks will be more than an ephemeral marketing tool used by interested parties. Books for children and adolescents deserve to play a larger part in class, thus becoming educational media in the best sense of the term. And good textbooks do need to be selected and praised, but most particularly by teachers and students!

Press release by the Leipzig Fair (October 26, 2011)

Picture: Visitors at the entrance of the Leipzig Book Fair 2009 (detail); Source: Wikimedia Commons (Author: Green G. (talk))

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