Celebrating National Book Lovers Day at Red Kangaroo Books

This day is all about celebrating all things BOOKS. 

The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1436, made books more accessible and revolutionised how we share stories. This innovation paved the way for the world of literature that we enjoy today, filled with countless genres and tales waiting to be discovered.

There's nothing quite like the feel of a real book in your hands, and we have a fantastic collection by Australian authors and more just waiting for you to explore.

At Red Kangaroo Books, National Book Lovers Day is a special time to reflect on our love for books and the incredible impact they have on our lives. To mark this day, we asked our team to share their personal connections to books and their all-time favourite reads. Here’s what they said:

As a teenager, I struggled a little bit socially when I left Switzerland and came back to Australia. I suppose I had absorbed the Swiss culture during my childhood and found it hard to fit in when I went to high school in Australia. 

I was the odd person out, not really understanding the social rules and had grown up in a different society, language and culture. Although, I was Australian, I felt a little bit displaced. So I spent a lot of my teenage years in the school library escaping from the very confusing social hierarchy and interactions. Books and their stories were a solace and a way of escaping from reality. Reading during break time and lunch time was a legitimate way of spending my time, when I felt a bit lonely and lost. Book Lover's day is a wonderful way to say thank you to those stories and authors who helped me navigate those teenage years. 

A big shout out to those school librarians who gave us safe spaces to escape to! School Libraries are important and vital for all those kids seeking a refuge from the playground. 

I grew up reading Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl (such fun!). I remember my mum asking me to go outside and play and stop reading. I don't think parents would be complaining about this, these days. There wasn't much YA fiction when I was growing up, so we kind of switched from children's literature to adult literature during our teenage years. I went through a phase of not reading during my 20s and 30s but rediscovered the love of reading in my 40s. I think I have made up for it since. Since running the bookstore, I have read a lot of books, but the books that have had the most impact on me are Ali Cobby Eckermann's 'Too Afraid to Cry' (sadly out of print), Marie Munkara's biography 'Of Ashes and Rivers that run to the Sea' and Amy Thunig's 'Tell Me Again'. 

All three authors share their story with generosity, sadness and humour. Ali and Marie were taken from their families and since then, they have had to grapple with the consequences of their removal. Reading other people's stories creates empathy and understanding of someone's first hand experience and moments of sudden realisation. Amy's story is different, but once again there are moments of sudden realisation that change the way you see the world and people. 

It is lovely to be reminded that books are so special that a National Day exists. The idea of a special day brings up images of curling up somewhere comfortable with yet another book that needs devouring, and savouring.

Kim Scott has deepened my love of his country, where I have grown up but enjoy so much now with more knowledge. I seek out other Western Australian authors to add to that knowledge both fiction and nonfiction.

National Book Lovers Day is a day to appreciate and celebrate the richness, connection, knowledge and passion that books bring to our lives. I can genuinely say that books have changed my life and at some points may have even saved it. As a child I remember poring over the school book catalogue and knowing we would not be able to afford them, I headed out to the neighbourhood with a bucket offering to wash peoples cars so I could buy as many books as possible from the catalogue. Since I learned to read books have always been a source of enjoyment, escape and comfort for me. They showed my different worlds, families, possibilities and in turn helped shape who I was. As a teenager I devoured books and would often spend half a day sitting on the floor of a big bookshop near where I lived reading all the backs of books before deciding what to buy – I wanted to read everything! Books allow us to share in each other’s humanity, desires and wisdom and that is something to be celebrated!

As a teenager I was obsessed with John Marsden books - So Much to Tell You, Letters From the Inside, Checkers, and above all the Tomorrow When the War Began Series. I remember taking the bus to the bookstore on the day the latter books in the Tomorrow series were released and the joy of opening the first pages in each long awaited continuation of the story.

As an adult books that have stayed with me long after I have read them have been ‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanagihara, ‘One Hundred Days’ by Alice Pung and ‘Boy Swallows Universe’ Trent Dalton and 100 years of Dirt by Rick Morton - basically I love a book that can make me cry like a big baby! 

Any day that celebrates books is a sensational day! Books are the heart and soul and meaning of my life. I grew up in the isolated outback in the 1960s and 70s and knew nothing of the outside world. Plastic covered books sent out from the Alice Springs School of the Air once a month changed my life. They gave me a world in which to escape and opened my eyes about what lay beyond the outback. They taught me about countries across the seas, people from other places, love and war, adventure. They sparked me a hunger to explore that world. I was very shy as a result of having grown up in the bush, and it was a big thing for me to go out into a world I did not know or understand. Those books gave me the courage and desire to break through the shyness and explore and discover. Without books, I can't imagine how much smaller and narrower and lonelier my life would have been. With books I had new places and friends, and that most wondrous of all things, escapism, and stimulation of thought and ideas. I will celebrate books at any opportunity and love reading more than anything in the whole world!

It's so important to keep spreading the word about books. It's the fastest way for children, and adults, to be enriched and inspired and to find a place for themselves within the pages - a place for joy and hope. I wish it was National Book Lovers’ Day every day!

Enid Blyton and Colin Thiele profoundly shaped my love for reading. Enid Blyton wrote about a world I could barely imagine – snow-covered mountains, daffodil filled meadows, craggy seasides, children having adventures on their own and beating the baddies. How more exciting could anything be? From the moment I started reading her stories, I could not get enough. They made me want to read more and more – and write as well. And Colin Thiele wrote evocatively about our own Australian landscape and I completely connected with ‘Sun on the Stubble’ and ‘February Dragon’ - a child’s perspective of the hardships of the land but equally our passionate love for the land and desire to protect it against drought and fire. I’m so grateful to those two authors - and to all children’s writers who help stimulate the imagination of a child and provide them with a place to escape and belong.