A Celebration of Books

Tomorrow on April 23rd, we will celebrate one of Barcelona's biggest festivals - La Diada de Sant Jordi. (My family will also be celebrating the delivery of our container to our new house, but let's not count our chickens before they hatch!) Apparently, this is a huge celebration, Sant Jordi that is, - a bit of Valentine's day with a bookish twist. 

Sant Jordi is the patron saint of Catalunya. So, the story goes, the knight Sant Jordi saved a princess by slaying a dragon and a rose bloomed in the dragon's blood. Since the Middle Ages, Barcelona has celebrated the event with a rose for your dear love. In 1923, a marketing-savvy bookseller merged Sant Jordi celebrations with the book gift-giving by honoring the day that both Cervantes and Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. To be technical, Cervantes and Shakespeare didn't actually both die on the 23rd because the country in which they lived were using different calendars, Gregorian and Julian respectively. In 1995, UNESCO declared April 23rd World Book and Copyright Day due to the Catalunian Sant Jordi celebration of book giving, the deaths of Cervantes, Shakespeare and births/deaths of other well-known writers (free children's book in Spanish to the first person who comments with another writer that born/died on this day).

 

Since this is our first year celebrating Sant Jordi, I am not quite sure what to expect. The Sant Jordi Medieval Fair in Les Corts sounds promising and kid-friendly. If we are too tired from unpacking boxes, we can always wander La Rambla along with the rest of Barcelona browsing book and flower stalls. A holiday of bookstores street vendors is my kind of day! I have read that 4 million roses and half a million books are sold on Sant Jordi day in Catalunya! 

We did do a bit of book celebrating this past weekend at the Festa del Llibre per a Nens i Nenes. This event has such an extensive lineup of entertaining events that it is spread throughout the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Museu d'Art Contemporània de Barcelona and the Plaça de Joan Coromines. It is hard to pick a favorite among the enchanting storytelling stations, performances, whimsical decorations and activity workshops. 

 

If pressed, I would vote for the "Música a La Carta." A completely engaging performance by a cello and viola player. Each performer took turns selecting a "carta" that represented a different musical time period. The performers had a little chat with the children about the time period and played a piece representative of that time along with the appropriate fashion accessories. What impressed me the most was that these 3 to 8 year olds could actually name composers of each time period. Of course, a few confused Beethoven with Baroque and Romantic with Mozart - at least they were familiar with the names! (If your kids need help catching up with their Catalunian counterparts, like mine do, play this fun game.)

For a complete list of Sant Jordi activities, check out the calendar at Kids in Barcelona.