Bowerbird Blues selected for NSS 2024

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has selected Bowerbird Blues by Aura Parker (Scholastic) for the 2024 National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS).

The NSS event will be held on Wednesday, 22 May 2024 at the new time of 12pm (AEST) and registrations for the event will open on 1 October.

Parker said the NSS ‘brings us together and makes us smile, and the shared experience can send imaginations soaring to new heights’. ‘I am surprised and blown away with excitement that Bowerbird Blues has been chosen as the book for 2024,’ Parker said.

ALIA’s children and youth services group convenor Nicola McGeown said, ‘Bowerbird Blues is an outstanding and visually appealing picture book. We all agreed that it was beautiful to read and would be a wonderful book to share across a wide range of age groups.’

Each year, ALIA selects one picture book for a simultaneous read-aloud event held in libraries, schools, pre-schools, family homes, childcare centres, bookshops, children’s hospitals and communities across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Speedy Sloth (Rebecca Young, illus by Heath McKenzie, Scholastic) was read for the NSS 2023 event, which was the biggest NSS event to date, with over 2.3 million participants at over 59,000 locations.

Category: Local news