For three years, the Ljubljana Reads programme of the Municipality of Ljubljana has been systematically developing reading culture in children. Every year the municipality gives an original picture book by a Slovene author as gift to each three-year-old child in Ljubljana and to each pupil on their first day in one of the capital’s primary schools. In this way we make the best books more accessible and support the top authors.

Within the framework of Ljubljana – the World Book Capital 2010, three-year-olds will enjoy the picture book The Polka-Dot Pot by author Anja Štefan and illustrator Jelka Reichman.

The collection of poetry by Anja Štefan Lonček is dominated by poems about animals, along with poems about children. All of the poems are formed in a well considered, carefully coordinated rhythm, which combines with the illustrations into an indivisible whole.
Anja Štefan Lonček is a well established Slovene author of children’s picture books. She has received numerous prizes for her work, including twice being the recipient of the Levstik Award and the Original Slovene Picture Book Award.
Jelka Reichman is a recognised Slovene children’s illustrator. She has received numerous prizes for her work in the area of picture books including the Levstik Award, the Župančič Award and the Hinko Smrekar Lifetime Achievement.


First grade primary school pupils in the Municipality of Ljubljana will have an opportunity to enjoy the picture book A Comic Strip Version of Slovene (and one German) Fairy Tales by author and illustrator Matjaž Schmidt.

Schmidt’s collection contains seventeen Slovene fairytales, primarily of folk origin, and, by happy coincidence, one German fairytale - the Grimm story Rumpelstiltskin. Although Schmidt’s comic strip versions are true to the largely well known originals (The Unicorn, Pavliha, The Dressmaker and the Scissors, The Water Man, The Dwarf), they are nonetheless reworked in a genuine comic strip manner: compact, dynamic and humorous.
The picture book therefore fills an important gap in the Slovene market, while at the same time respectfully positioning itself in the unbroken chain of the priceless fairytale tradition.

The Slovenian Book Agency will also participate in accustoming young readers to the book with the programme Growing up with a Book, within the framework of which all Slovene secondary school pupils will for the first time be given an original Slovene book. In the year of the book they will read Trouserless Geniuses by Slavko Pregl.