RIVERVIEW: PART OF POSSIBLE GUINNESS WORLD RECORD

They were in the hallways, there were in classrooms and in the gym, as 245 students listened to 11 teachers and parent volunteers as part of an attempt to break a Guinness World Record.

As part of Family Literacy Day, Riverview was one of only two LBPSB schools to be part of a nationwide initiative on the part of the ABC Canada Literary Foundation to break the world record of “Most Children Reading with an adult, Multiple Locations”

The current record holders are the Americans with 78,791 set in 2006 and as of last Friday, close to 189,000 participants were registered in Canada.

At Riverview, the event started at 2 pm and after a 10-second countdown over the intercom by school librarian Jennifer Holmes, the school was hush and all that could be heard was the voices of the various readers, including the Board’s Director of Library Services Suzanne Nesbitt and Board Librarian Raphaella Dixon, who also used various sound effects like foot stomping to entertain the students.

The books of choice were 5 Robert Munsch books from Munschworks 2, including such title as: Pigs!; and the classic Mortimer.

School librarian Jennifer Holmes, who was walking the beat throughout the school during the event counting heads for the official forms, was ecstatic and thought this was great for the school, which celebrated 80 years of existence last year. “This attempt gave Riverview an opportunity to show their commitment to promoting literacy. We hope that this will encourage families to read together at every opportunity. Books are a window to a world of hopes, dreams and possibilities. Who wouldn't want to share that with their children?”, stated the mild-mannered librarian.

Besides yours truly, the event was well covered by major media including the Gazette, Global TV Quebec and CBC Montreal.

The old record held by the Americans, if all those registered qualify, would be broken by more than double, not bad for a country about the tenth of the population. Another reason to celebrate, wouldn’t you say? All documents from all venues must be submitted to ABC CANADA by Feb. 6th to be then sent to Guinness World HQ.