Who knew, eh?

By one of those flukes of taking my time reading the weekend newspaper, I ran across an article on 'homegrown literature' and the importance of reading exactly that. It claimed that today has been proclaimed as "I Read Canadian Day."

Only, as it happened, I was in a bookstore today and as I made my purchase, I asked about the observance. The employee gave me the deer-in-the-headlights face, and said she didn't know what I was talking about. If the booksellers don't know about it, no wonder there's no promotion.

I remember that, during the '80s we had "Canada Book Day" and it fell on, I'm pretty sure, April 23rd. And whaddya know, apparently it still exists (though even the entry about it admits that few people know about this).

It really was quite the celebration, as the Canada Council provided a box of Canadian books to libraries that made a request.

And next week, there'll be another Canadian literary observance. If it doesn't come to mind immediately, you might have to check back here, as who knows, I might even do a post about it.

Read on -- and when you can, think about reading something written by a Canadian author.