Arab Reading Challenge: 10-year-old Lulwa El-Assaad reads I Want a Pet

10-year-old Lulwa El-Assaad reads I Want a Pet by Samar Mahfouz Barraj as part of the Arab Reading Challenge.

Last month, Sheikh Khalifa, President of the UAE, declared 2016 as the “year of reading”. It followed the September launch, by Sheikh Mohammed, of the Arab Reading Challenge, which runs until April. The plan is to turn the competition into an annual event.

We want the Arab child to love to read, to make reading a hobby, part of their fun routine, not something that is a chore or homework,” says Abdulla Al Nuaimi, the general coordinator of the challenge.

The ambitious goal is to get “a million children” in the region to read 50 Arabic books each, in addition to their normal reading for school.