“Secrets of Reading”

Date: Saturday, October 21, 2023

Place: Nishikawa Ai-Plaza (Saiwai-cho, Kita-ku, Okayama City)

Organised by: Children's Books Committee, The Japan P. E. N. Club

Cooperated by: Okayama City, Okayama City Literature Award Steering Committee

The symposium “Secrets of Reading” was planned and organised by The Japan P. E. N. Club Children's Books Committee.  Mariko Kono, a translator, was a moderator.

The first part of the symposium was entitled “Let's Talk Together, Secrets of Reading.”
First question is “Is it fun to read books?”
Yuko Katakawa, Jun Nasuda, Eto Mori, and Hiko Tanaka, authors of children’s books, introduced their own experiences of reading and memorable works of them. They also shared their favorite words, such as “Reading is the best soup time” and “Reading a book is a dialogue with the author of the book.”

In the second part, high school students from Okayama Joto High School, Okayama Prefectural Kurashiki Kojoike High School, Shujitsu High School, Seishin Girls High School and Soshigakuen High School joined the discussion, and the authors asked the students questions.

The authors’  questions were “How do you use paper books and digital  books?”, “Why do you continue to read books when there are so many different kinds of entertainment available nowadays?”, “Do you feel lonely when you read?”, “Are reading and writing on the same line?” etc. The students answered tothe questions.

The  students responded with wonderful words and episodes such as, “Books are one of the best forms of entertainment,” “Movies go along on their own speed, but reading is good because I can read by my own speed,” and “When I was reading a book, my friend was right next to me.”

Finally, a high school student asked, “Is a novel ever finished?”An authors answered,“There may be an end point, but there is no completion,”“You don't have to think it has to be completed,” and “It will never be completed, but there will come a time when you think it would be okay to end it.”
Both the high school students and the audience nodded their heads and listened to the authors words.