CẦN THƠ — Cần Thơ City’s 2nd Book Festival, which has opened at Lưu Hữu Phước Park in Ninh Kiều District, features a large collection of children’s books.

Organised by the city’s Department of Information and Communication, the event features 195,000 titles, including hundreds of titles for children and teenagers, sold at discounts of up to 40 per cent at 300 stalls.

The week-long event has attracted more than a hundred international and Vietnamese publishers, distributors and other companies. 

Seven foreign publishers, such as Penguin, Cambridge and Oxford, are also featured.  

Among the popular titles on display are children’s books by the Kim Đồng Publishing House, one of the country’s leading publishers for children.

Three of Kim Đồng’s best-selling titles, Hoàng Mai Quyên’s Búp Bê Cô Đơn (Lonely Doll), Trần Tùng Chinh’s Trại Mùa Xuân (Spring Camp) and Mai Bửu Minh’s Chiến Công Siêu Phàm (Supernatural Powers), have been reprinted.  

The books feature the lives of children from the Mekong River Delta region. 

Quyên’s Búp Bê Cô Đơn is a collection of 13 short stories about the lives and first loves of rural teenagers. 

While Chinh’s Trại Mùa Xuân includes stories about a young teacher and his secondary school students, Minh’s Chiến Công Siêu Phàm features a group of boys and girls who discover the world in different ways.

The three writers will sign their books for readers on Thursday. 

The HCM City Book Distribution Company took part in the festival for the first time, displaying 26,000 copies by veteran authors at 20 stalls.  

The company has invited cultural researchers and authors to take part in seminars and forums about reading, and opened a space to display 1,000 copies of books on President Hồ Chí Minh.

More than 150 photographs capturing the Mekong Delta region and Cần Thơ in the past and today are also displayed.

“We hope our event will attract more than 40,000 visitors,” said Lê Văn Tâm, deputy head of the festival’s organising board.

Many books will be given away for free on March 31, the last day of the event. — VNS