The Casablanca Young Readers Award, which has been supported by the BMCI Foundation since 2006, was held on 19th June 2010 at the Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca.

The Award was organised by PEEP (the Parent’s Association for students attending French State schools in Morocco). Unusually, the jury this year wasn’t made up of a panel of adult “experts”, but of children aged between 9 and 12, who decided on the winner. The jury of 25 children, selected by a committee made up of parents, teachers and librarians, chose a book by Jean-Marie Defossez entitled “For All the Gold in the World”.

The main objectives of this event were to encourage students to read, to share the joy of reading by encouraging them to express themselves and write clearly about their personal reactions to books, and to promote the distribution of quality literature for young people in Morocco.

At the award ceremony, the children got the opportunity to talk with Mr. Jean-Marie Defossez, a Belgian writer of literature for young people. The audience listened with rapt interest as he explained how to begin writing and develop a book.