The Center for the Book and the African Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division in the Library of Congress and the children’s librarians of the D.C. Public Library sponsored “Reading Africa,” at the Library of Congress on Feb. 8, 2005. The program featured brief talks by Lorato Trok, the co-director of the South African Centre for the Book’s award-winning “First Words in Print” and Joseph Lekuton, author of “Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasi on the African Savannah”.

In September 2004, the South African Centre’s “First Words in Print” project won the 2004 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, which is administered by the International Board on Books for Young People. The project is a program which distributes books to children and provides support and guidance to caregivers as they explore ways to share books with the young.