Local News

The All Japan Magazine and Book Publishers’ and Editors’ Association selected Imari, Saga Prefecture, to receive its second Takahashi Matsunosuke Award for promoting the culture of reading. The award cites the city’s Uchidoku (home reading) program that encourages parents to read to their children at home. Imari began the program in 2007. Mayumi Inuzuka, the director of the municipal library, which is the headquarters of the Uchidoku program, said, “Increasing the opportunities for conversation in the home should help solve the problems of bullying and truancy.”