DAY EIGHT. Halfway through the Davide Cali blog tour and we have exciting news of a new reading project for kids, Reading for Social Peace, which Davide Cali will be launching in Melbourne on 24 May during his visit to Australia. Also, popular children’s author and blogger Dee White examines Davide Cali’s approach to creating picture books on her DeeScribe Writing blog.

Reading for Social Peace is a National Year of Reading project devised by Yarra Plenty Regional Library in partnership with book publisher Wilkins Farago.

Inspired by a similar program by the National Library of the Maldives, it aims to use stories to encourage conversation in young people about issues that cause conflict, such as war, cultural differences, and bullying. Two of the texts being used in the program are Davide Cali’s The Enemy (illustrated by Serge Bloch) and The Bear with the Sword (illustrated by Gianluca Foli). As Davide himself puts it:

In both these story there is an enemy. In The Bear with the Sword, the enemy never comes, in The Enemy he’s just there, but in both cases we don’t know him, he’s somebody unknown in some way. The two stories have a similar moral: in the end, the worst enemy is often in us.

For details of the launch on 24 May, which is open to the public, visit the Yarra Plenty Regional Library blog.

Also today, children’s writer Dee White looks at Davide Cali’s craft as a writer on her DeeScribe Writing blog. She pays particularly attention to The Enemy and What is this thing called love?, concluding

I highly recommend Davide Cali’s books as great examples of original, thought-provoking, moving, simple picture books with a complete story arc and strong endings.

The Davide Cali blog tour is taking place from 1 to 15 May, as a countdown to Davide’s first visit to Australia from 16 to 28 May. Every day, some of Australia’s most interesting book bloggers will be posting interviews with him, reviewing his books, offering giveaways and maybe giving a sneak peak of his award-winning new book, 10 Little Insects.

You can check out the full blog tour here.

Davide Cali’s 2012 Australian tour is an initiative of the National Year of Reading