Young readers in the UAE now have an exciting new opportunity to get together, read, discuss their ideas, and exchange notes about the latest book they’ve read – thanks to the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY)’s literary initiative, the ‘Read Dream Create’ Book Club.

The ‘Read, Dream, Create’ Book Club was launched at the ongoing Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF 2019), whose first seven permanent members are young adults from the Sharjah Youth Centre.

These key members will lead the clubs in their respective centre’s libraries, getting the other members of the centres together to read a book that the club will choose and announce on their social media platform.

A new book will be selected for the club’s members to read each month, which will be read, discussed and critiqued over group reading sessions.

Meera Al Naqbi, Manager of Read, Dream, Create campaign, said: “Since its inception in 2013, the campaign has dedicated itself to broaden its scope and enhance its role in the Emirati community. It is committed to building the knowledge and awareness of children and youth in the UAE.

“This book club will offer a cultural platform to young adults, and bring them together to share their love for reading, inspire them to select books together, and develop their creative ideas and critical thinking. Through their book discussions, the youth will also be sharpening their debating skills, which is a great way to put forth individual view points while learning to respect those held by others.”

The club has been designed to serve as a platform to motivate children and young people to read and develop their skills by reading, interpreting stories, and turning their ideas into stories. The campaign also aims to better understand the needs of the Arab child, thereby identifying topics that should be addressed in Arabic children’s literature.

The campaign also organised several workshops for children and young adults at SCRF 2019. They include:

Hag Al Leila Celebrations

Visitors to SCRF celebrated the Hag Al Leila event, which featured a reading session conducted by Hajer Youssef. She read Ahmed Al Helo, written by Emirati author Marwa Al Aqroubi. At the end of the session, gifts and sweets were distributed to the participating children and their parents.

Youth Discussion Panel

In keeping with its dedication to engaging successful and influential role models, the campaign organised a discussion panel for young adults, which was led by popular Emirati journalist Amna, who has 12K followers on Instagram. The session discussed the importance of evaluating and critiquing books based on content.

Interactive Recreational Workshops

The campaign organised a series of interactive recreational workshops that stimulated children to write their stories and make their books using pens, colours and coloured papers. Each book included personal details from the child’s life.

At a workshop themed, ‘I and My Story’, participants were divided into three groups and learnt team-building capabilities. The first group drew the cover, the second drew the characters and the third group wrote the lessons learned from the story.

Another workshop themed, ‘I’ll Read My Story and Make My Mask’ was conducted to teach children the art of designing and make cardboard masks, while writing summaries on them. It taught children to develop reading and writing skills, while summarising stories creatively.

The book club is aimed at offering a cultural platform that’ll help young adults to bond over literary activities and reading sessions, enabling them to sharpen their skills of critical thinking. Further, these activities are geared towards motivating children and young people to differently interpret stories and turn their ideas into interesting writings.

Launched in 2013 by UAEBBY, the Read, Dream, Create campaign seeks to bring children and books together. It promotes reading as a noble activity among the Emirati community, especially within children and young people, developing their capacity to innovate and create, as well as motivating them to use their literary skills through writing stories.