A book’s all sides. A new method to promote reading of youth through book-event?

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the reading promotion project called “A book’s all sides”, together with the activities of the book-event, can stimulate young people’s reading. The research questions are: How do the project leaders plan and organize activities for the book-event? How do the young people respond to the activities at the book-event? Do the young people get interested in the book which is presented at the book-event? Which connections between Vygotskij’s theory and the activities can be found in the book-event? The theoretical approach is based on Lev Vygotskij’s socio-cultural theory. To answer my research questions I have implemented four qualitative interviews and two interviews with the adult activity leaders and observed a book-event in the classroom. The class interpreted a book through drama exercises at the book-event that I observed. The results of the examination showed that there were no differences in the young people’s responses to the activities regardless of whether they were interested in reading or not. Only one pupil, who otherwise wasn’t interested in reading, started to read the book. The project had, in other words, limited effect. Conclusions from the investigation were that a combination of different methods could encourage reading more. A book-event should be a recurrent occurrence where young people could be involved in the book selection and where they could plan and implement activities which are based on their experience and competence