Myra here.

I always take pleasure in sharing what our 2021 reading year would look like at around this time. Our annual reading theme has to do with #SurvivalStories2021 which I will explain more in a few days’ time. We also have our usual quarterly reading themes as found below.

January – March: Joy-Makers and Peace Builders

We are essentially looking for inspirational or motivational stories that bring joy, peace, love. We believe we need more of these especially at the beginning of the year – to set the tone right throughout 2021.

April – June 2021: Migrants, Exiles, Refugees – Stories Of The Dispossessed

We are featuring more voices from marginalized communities – hence Stories of the Dispossessed, with a focus on migrants, exiles, and refugees.

July – September 2021: Binge-Read: Book Series Marathon

We have been meaning to get to some of the book series languishing in our shelves, and we are hoping that the summer of 2021 would provide us the space and time to do just that.

October – December 2021: Horror and Deliverance In Books

Just to provide some measure of balance, we are also featuring stories that are horrifying – but also have some glimpse of deliverance in the narratives. I am not sure if you’ve noticed, we do have quite an affinity for the macabre here.

How about you? What are your reading plans this 2021?

Myra is a Teacher Educator and a registered clinical psychologist based in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. Prior to moving to the Middle East, she lived for eleven years in Singapore serving as a teacher educator. She has edited five books on rediscovering children’s literature in Asia (with a focus on the Philippines, Malaysia, India, China, Japan) as part of the proceedings for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content where she served as the Chair of the Programme Committee for the Asian Children’s Writers and Illustrators Conference from 2011 until 2019. While she is an academic by day, she is a closet poet and a book hunter at heart. When she is not reading or writing about books or planning her next reads, she is hoping desperately to smash that shuttlecock to smithereens because Badminton Is Life (still looking for badminton courts here at UAE - suggestions are most welcome).

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