The International Children & Youth Book Fair will be held for the first time in the southern city of Cahul on February 8 and 9, Info-Prim Neo reports. Cahul is, after Criuleni, Leova, Balti and Hancesti, the fifth locality where the fair will be held. Over 35 children’s books from different publishing houses will be launched in the two fair days. More than 5,000 books will be exhibited. Traditionally, every schoolchild visiting the fair will get a copy of the book-surprise “An Ant in the Library” by Vasile Romanchuk. The programme of the event includes an autograph session and a meeting with writers Mihai Chimpoi, Arcadie Sucheveanu, Vasile Romanchiuk, Iulian Filip, Constantin Dragomir, Claudia Partole, Titus Shtirbu and publishers Oleg Bodrug, Gheorghe Prini, Iurie Barsa, Oleg Bujor. On February 8, new or already well known book collections for the little ones from the publishing house Prut International will be presented to Cahul readers. Stiinta publishing company will come with two collections, appreciated and very popular among readers: “Moldova’s Flora and Fauna” and “School Dictionaries”. This house comes with two dictionary titles that became in short time very popular: “The Romanian Explanatory Dictionary in Pictures” and “The Dictionary of Romanian Writers from Bessarabia (1812-2006)”. Folk music singer Mihai Ciobanu will launch the book “The Parents’ House Is Not For Sale”, a collection of songs which includes references made by various artists, journalists, people of art. A literary-artistic show will be organised in the school where the late poet and scriptwriter Gheorghe Voda studied. His son, singer Ricu Voda, will attend the event. Organisers have prepared a book donation for public and school libraries from Valeni village. On the second day, a number of books written by Claudia Partole, winner of the 2008 diploma offered by the UNESCO International Council for Children’s and Young People’s Literature, will be presented. Constantin Dragomir will acquaint the little ones with the “Grandma with Fairytales”, while Titus Stirbu will tell the children about his books “My Little Car”, “My Chicken”, “Snail’s Grandma”. The presentation of the “ABC of Arts” and the “Dictionary of Proverbs and Sayings” published by Epigraf house will close the second day of the fair. These literature promotions are part of the national project “Towards culture and civilization by reading”, a promotional campaign in the support of reading as an essential factor of education, information and social achievements, started in March 2007. The motivation that stays behind this project is the situation of public and school libraries, which, in the opinion of the organisers, are the main source of providing the population with books, but whose collection of books is old and outdated, as they did not receive new publications for several years, which makes young persons find other leisure activities. Another reason is that more than half of the population finds it difficult to buy a book as there is no bookshop in the region where they live and/or owing to the low purchasing power.