Gwangju Dong-gu Conducts Voting for 'Book of the Year' Until the 24th

Dong-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, announced that it is conducting a resident preference vote until the 24th of this month to select the '2024 Reading Dong-gu, Book of the Year' as part of the humanities city creation project emphasized during the 7th and 8th local administrations.

The 'Book of the Year' project is a social reading movement promoted by Dong-gu, which aims to be a humanities city by fostering a community that gains nourishment and wisdom through books and reflects together. This initiative has been underway since 2020.

Earlier, starting from January this year, Dong-gu received recommendations for a total of 208 candidate books from reading experts and residents. Through a book selection committee meeting, 20 recommended books were chosen for residents, with five books each in the categories of infants, children, adolescents, and adults.

The selection committee set the theme for the 2024 'Book of the Year' as ▲Together ▲Care ▲Reflection ▲Bright Future, intending to consider values urgently required by our society today, and nominated books that embody these themes as candidates.

Voting participation can be done online via the Dong-gu Office website, the mobile app 'Dudream,' or the public library 'Chaekjeongwon.' Voters select one book per category that they want to read with family, neighbors, or friends from the candidate books in each category.

Dong-gu will finalize a total of 10 books as the Book of the Year?4 for infants and children, 3 for adolescents, and 3 for adults?by synthesizing the resident preference vote results and the selection committee’s opinions. Subsequently, various reading culture programs will be conducted throughout the year, including meetings with authors of the selected books, the Book of the Year reading contest, resident book support, and visiting reading culture classes.

In particular, to expand residents’ reading opportunities, Dong-gu plans to actively operate various reading culture programs linked with local bookstores and reading culture organizations from the end of April, along with resident book support for 80 recommended books, including the 'Book of the Year.'

The adult category candidates include ▲Joseon Meets Einstein (Min Taegi) ▲Platforms Do Not Deliver Safety (Park Jeonghun) ▲Just One Person (Choi Jinyoung) ▲Bright Regards (Baek Surin) ▲Philosophy Changes the Weather (Seo Dongwook).

The adolescent category candidates are ▲I Will Be Myself, You Be You (Kim Haeun) ▲Quiet Coincidence (Kim Subin) ▲No Humans Land (Kim Jeong) ▲The Work of the Lake (Lee Hyun) ▲Salt Child (Lee Heeyoung). The children’s category candidates are ▲Cheer Up, Mole! (Lee Soyoung) ▲Mr. Jjang’s Animal Job Counseling Center (An Miran) ▲Ribo and Anne (Uh Yoonjung) ▲That Brother (Lee Youngah) ▲Spider Family (Poem by Baek Seok, illustrations by Kim Jeongjin).

For the infant picture book category, the candidates are ▲Three Friends (National Asia Culture Center) ▲Protect the Yellow Road (Park Seonyoung) ▲The River and I (Poem by Na Taeju, illustrations by Moon Doyeon) ▲Momo and Toto Heart Heart (Kim Seulgi) ▲Peach Rabbit (Kim Jiyoon), awaiting residents’ choice. For more details, please check the Dong-gu website and the mobile app 'Dudream.'

Im Taek, Mayor of Dong-gu, said, "We hope many residents will show interest and participate in the voting for the representative humanities city Dong-gu program, 'Book of the Year,' which shares comfort and hope through communication and exchange via books." He added, "We will continue to prepare various programs to spread a culture of reading in daily life that supports residents’ autonomous learning and growth."