Parents and children are invited to attend the eighth annual Children’s Reading Festival that will be held tomorrow at the Victoria Park in Hamilton from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Since 1999, the festival has been the Island’s largest literacy event, which aims at preparing and motivating children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to kids and families Island-wide.

Organisers, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, are expecting almost 3,000 people to attend the free event that will feature a host of well-known Bermudian literacy advocates and will be opened by Minister of Social Rehabilitation Dale Butler.

This year’s ‘celebrity’ readers will include some of the stars from the Island Soccer League as well as players from Bermuda’s national cricket team.

And, there will be a story time segment for kids, which usually enthuses them through popular and interesting story-telling.

Denise Riviere, of the sorority’s Bermuda chapter, said: “This free event targets new-borns to primary school aged children.

“Delta Sigma Theta’s effort is rooted in the idea that in order to ensure that children can read, it’s vital to ensure they want to read, by shaping new generations of willing and eager readers. “Our thrust is to remind families in Bermuda that reading is fun!” Other fun-filled activities will include a creative arts station for drawing, colouring, creative writing, face painting, a fun castle and a puppet show.

Twenty-two extraordinary women founded Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. in 1913 at Howard University in Washington, DC.

Today, it is hailed as the largest public service sorority in the world, with more than 200,000 members and 900 chapters.