'We Read for Children': Kalima Reading Club to dedicate rest of July to outer space

Books themed around space and the solar system will take centre stage in honour of the UAE's mission to Mars

Mezna Najeeb, second from the right, won the 2019 Arab Reading Challenge

In honour of the UAE's Hope probe to Mars, the Kalima Reading Club's 'We Read for Children' initiative will feature virtual reading sessions dedicated to outer space.

For the rest of July, the club will host a series of weekly sessions featuring books themed around space and the solar system. The aim is to promote reading among children and encourage them to make it a daily habit.

The scheduled line-up will feature Iraqi engineer Diana Al Sindy reading A Planetary Adventure by Hye-young Lee on Friday, July 17, Dr Mishkan Mohammed Al-Awar, director of the research and studies centre at the Dubai Police Academy, reading Don't Follow Me by Eun Hong Jung on Friday, July 24, and Mezna Najeeb, Emirati student and the winner of the 2019 Arab Reading Challenge, taking participants on a "journey throughout space" with a story by Seung-Yoon Kang on Friday, July 31.

The sessions will start at 5pm and be in Arabic. They can be streamed on Kalima's social media pages.

"The Kalima Translation Project is celebrating the efforts of the UAE in the space race, as our national space programme ventures into new frontiers with the launch of the Hope Probe to Mars later this month," said Abdullah Majed Al Ali, executive director of Dar Al Kutub at the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.

The UAE's Hope probe is scheduled for lift-off on Wednesday, July 15. It is the Arab world's first mission to Mars and was built by more than 150 Emirati engineers, scientists and researchers, with the help of three American universities.

The mission will blast off from Japan and is intended to be the first probe to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere when it reaches the planet's orbit in 2021. The aim is to help answer questions about the planet, with studies of its lower and upper atmosphere.

More information is available at www.tcaabudhabi.ae