LitWorld's Founder and Executive Director Pam Allyn shared the history and the future of World Read Aloud Day with the New York Daily News. We dream of a worldwide literacy community and look forward to raising our voices with friends around the world tomorrow when World Read Aloud Day 2013 arrives.
"A wide-eyed, 7-year-old El Barrio boy who had never in his life heard a book read aloud to him provided the inspiration for World Read Aloud Day, the global literacy campaign that kicks off on Wednesday in Harlem.
The child was in a foster-care program when Pam Allyn opened up a copy of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic “Where the Wild Things Are,” and began to read about the adventures of a young boy named Max.
As Allyn tells the story, the child finally said, "I wish everybody could do this every day!"