At the just-concluded Shanghai Book Fair, one of this year's highlights has been the Charlotte's Books Reading Competition, which was set up to try to encourage more children to read.

 

　　CRI's Yunfeng has more from Shanghai.

 

　　A Chinese boy reads a paragraph from the well-known short novel The Happy Prince on a center stage in the Children's section of the Shanghai Book Fair. He is very attentive in his reading, and although he loses his footing at the pronunciation of certain words, he does his best to read the story loudly and clearly.

 

　　Off the stage, the other young competitors are busy preparing, reading the paragraph again and again. Yu Jiayi is a 7 year ago girl who sounds innocent when reading aloud; she says she likes reading a lot.

 

　　The judges of the Charlotte's Books Reading Competition are professional readers. Liang Hui, a host at Radio Shanghai tells the young competitors to use their voices to build the characters in the story. Apparently, the children could not control their voices very well. Huang Ying, a producer at Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio says that as a judge she is looking for potential and hoping to hear the joy of reading from them.

 

　　"We are NOT looking for perfect pronunciation and intonation from the children, but for their love of words and sounds. I would be happy if I could see their passion and understanding of the story they read."

 

　　Liang Hui, an experienced radio host, says reading aloud is one of the best ways to help children build up their abilities in reading comprehension and self- expression. In the context of competitions, children usually try their best to learn quickly and win.

 

　　Wu Hong is Vice Chief Editor of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, and one of the event organizers. He says that the publishing house started the reading competition last year. Having observed the previous young participants, they now organize a range of activities, including this reading competition, in the hope of attracting more interest from children.

 

　　More than ten competitors, young and old, that were selected from hundreds have read on the stage. It appears that no one really cares about the result of the competition; everyone is here to enjoy reading and share in the joy of reading aloud.