Weeks of European countries in Children Libraries of Moscow Region is organized by State Children Library of Moscow Region and has been running since December 2006. This year the project will be dedicated to Great and Britain and will start on November, 29. The project is held in close partnership with British Council and Visit London. The main aim of the project is to introduce Russian readers and librarians with the culture, literature and history of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
British Council is proud to support the visit of poets Andy Croft and Paul Summers and reader development specialist Anne Sarrag to The Week of Great Britain in Children Libraries of Moscow Region.
On November, 29 Anne Sarrag will hold a seminar for Librarians dedicated to library system of Great Britain and national programmes of reading development.
On the first and second of December Andy Croft and Paul Summers will hold seminars for pupils in a schools of Moscow and Moscow region as well as a workshop for translators at the philological faculty of Moscow State University.
 Anne Sarrag has worked for 25 years in field of children’s books, starting with the Book Bus, a children’s mobile bookshop and literacy charity in London,. In the early 90’s she worked for Booktrust, and also acted as UK secretariat for IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People). Anne held various marketing and consultancy roles with children’s publishers in London in-between taking the Book Bus around the UK on roadshows to coincide with Children’s Book Week.
Whilst working as a consultant for CILIP during National Libraries Week in 1997, she met Miranda McKearney, after which they set up LaunchPad together, a charity working with library services to promote the value of libraries for children through marketing advocacy and research. Anne led on starting the first Summer Reading Challenge in 1999 - which she has managed each year since. LaunchPad became The Reading Agency in 2003 and the Summer Reading Challenge is now the biggest children's reading in the uk with approximately 750,000 children between 4 -12 years taking part, with a further 11,200 children taking part through 28 international British Council centres.
 Andy Croft lives in Middlesbrough, where he has been active in community-writing projects for many years. Writing Residencies include the Great North Run, the Hartlepool Headland, the Combe Down Stone Mines Project, the Southwell Poetry Festival and HMP Holme House. His books include Red Letter Days, Out of the Old Earth, A Weapon in the Struggle, Selected Poems of Randall Swingler and Comrade Heart. He has also written three novels and over forty non-fiction books about sport for teenagers.
Books of poetry include Nowhere Special, Gaps Between Hills, Headland, Just as Blue, Great North, Comrade Laughter, Ghost Writer, Sticky and Three Men on the Metro (with Bill Herbert and Paul Summers). He has edited the anthologies Red Sky at Night (with Adrian Mitchell), North by North East (with Cynthia Fuller), Not Just a Game (with Sue Dymoke), The Nightshift (with Michael Baron and Jenny Swann), Holme and Away and Speaking English.
He has given many poetry readings, including in Moscow, New York, Novosibirsk, Potsdam, Sofia, Kemerovo, the Royal Festival Hall and London's Poetry International. He writes a regular poetry column for the Morning Star and runs Smokestack Books.
 Paul Summers was born in Blyth, Northumberland in 1967. He now lives in North Shields. His poetry has appeared widely in print since the late Eighties and he has performed his work all over the world. He was founding co-editor of the 'leftfield' magazines Billy Liar and Liar Republic and a co-director of Liar Inc Ltd, responsible for facilitating countless creative projects across the North of England in educational and community contexts. He has also written for TV, film, radio and theatre and has collaborated many times with artists on mixed-media projects.
‘Three Men on the Metro’, a collaborative project about Moscow co-written with fellow poets Bill Herbert and Andy Croft was published in 2009 by Five Leaves. The ‘Dreams Days Break Portfolio’ (73degreesandclear), the result of a long-term collaboration with photographer David Gray was also published in 2009. His latest solo collection 'Big Bella's Dirty Cafe' was published by Dogeater in 2006. 'Home (in 3 bits)', a spoken word/music collaboration with former Lindisfarne musician Dave Hull-Denholm was also released in 2006. Union (New & Selected Poems) will be published by Smokestack Books in 2011.
Other publications include: Cunawabi (Cunawabi Publishing, London 2003), The Rat’s Mirror (Lapwing Press 1999), The Last Bus (Iron Press 1998), Beer & Skittles (Echo Room Press 1997), Vermeer’s Dark Parlour (Echo Room Press 1996) & 140195 (Echo Room Press 1995). He received Northern Arts Writers’ Awards in 1995 and 1998 and a NWN Time to Write Award in 2008.
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