Amazon Celebrates World Book Day with Global Free Library Events in Twelve Countries Around the World

Amazon's Canadian celebration of World Book Day brings hundreds of participants together to share a love of reading

Events around the world garnered more than 17,200 book donations and brought more than 7,400 participants together to share a love of reading, globally

Event in Toronto collected more than 500 book donations

SEATTLE, April 27, 2017 /CNW/ - Amazon hosted its first celebration of World Book Day with a Global Free Library event series in twelve countries, including Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Amazon invited communities around the world to celebrate their love of reading and books in honour of World Book Day, celebrated annually on April 23. World Book Day is a day dedicated to authors, illustrators and readers across the globe.  

Across twelve countries, several thousand people including employees, local community members and book publishers donated more than 17,200 books to bring the Global Free Library event series to life. The global events brought together more than 7,400 participants to celebrate reading, and included activities ranging from author readings and photo booths, to book-inspired latte art and temporary tattoos of Kindle Popular Highlights. In the spirit of World Book Day, readers that attended the celebrations were encouraged to leave a book they love and want to share and to discover and select a new book (or eBook) to bring home and read. The remaining books were donated to local charities. In Toronto, books were donated to Children's Book Bank.

"Books are home to us at Amazon, our company started with books and they remain core to what we do," said Robin Mendelson, Director of Books & Media, Amazon. "The power of reading and the power that books have to transform lives and shape communities is as strong as ever. Around the world, readers visited our Global Free Library events and took part in the celebration of reading, sharing and discovering new books. We were so appreciative to receive the support of publishers, customers and our own employees to give back to local and global institutions that are vital to the promotion of literacy and literature. Amazon employees had such a great time joining families and our local communities around the world who took time out of their days to share in the love of reading."

"It was a fantastic event and I was so pleased to be there chatting with people about the Book Bank and books," said Roxanne Deans, Directory of Inventory and Outreach, Children's Book Bank. "We are thrilled to have received so many great books from Amazon and Torontonians and can't wait to see what next World Book Day holds."

Fun facts from Amazon's celebrations of World Book Day in Toronto:

• Over 250 attendees celebrated World Book Day at Amazon's Toronto event at Boxcar Social;
• More than 500 books were donated to Children's Book Bank by Amazon employees, publishers and community members;
• Three Canadian publishers donated books – Scholastic, Simon & Schuster and Hachette.

Highlights from the Global Free Library event series can be viewed here.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.

SOURCE Amazon.ca

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