About the project

European Young Readers Prize is a Socrates-Comenius project in which are involved five secondary schools from Bulgaria, France, Luxembourg, Poland and Romania. The project started in the school year 2004/05 and we hope to continue it for the next 2 years.

The project is based on the "European Young Readers Prize" which was created to give readers aged 14 to 19, opportunity to discover contemporary European literature and other European countries. We want them to explore both of these European aspects through the books and the exchanges. We think they need to develop their openness, curiosity toward other European countries, their knowledge about contemporary literature and to learn how to form their own judgements and critical sense. We give the same selection of contemporary titles to read to participating students and ask them to nominate the best book. Students will do that in their own classes and by e-mail, personal letters and meetings with participating students from other countries. They will choose their own representatives to presents their opinion on the favourite book and negotiate and finally give "European Young Readers Prize" to the author of the best book Through this project we promote negotiation skills, search for consensus and dialogue. Schools will organise exhibitions, meetings with authors writing contests for the best revives etc. All activities will be included in the main final products - the brochure and CD with the project presentation. (from the application to Socrates-Comenius National Agencies)

For 2004/05 edition there were seven writers nominated to the prize. They were: Anna Enquist (Holland), Marianne Fredriksson (Sweden), Jennifer Johnston (Ireland), Lidia Jorge (Portugal), Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Fred Vargas (France) and Christa Wolf (Germany). The prize winner was announced on the 30th of March 2005. Young people gathered in European Parliament in Strasbourg elected Fred Vargas as the best author.

For 2005/06 edition there were six writers nominated to the prize: Zsuzsa Bank (Germany), Rafael Chirbes (Spain), Michael Frayn (Great Britain), Erlend Loe (Norway), Ismail Kadare (Albania), Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Belgium). The prize winner will be announced in March 2006 in European parliament in Strasbourg.

A few words about us

Trzemeszno is a small town (8.000 residents) situated between two lakes - Klasztorne and Popielewskie at the eastern outskirts of Wielkopolska province.
The history of the town goes back for a 1000 years. According to legends, St. Adalbert (Wojciech) founded the first monastery in Poland inhere and then it was his first grave. In the beginning of 12^th century prince Bolesław Krzywousty founded a monastery of canons regular of St. Augustine. Since then till the end of 18^th c. it had been one of the biggest and most important monasteries in Poland.
Trzemeszno itself had been a cloister town to 19^th century and was inhabited by craftsmen and farmers. In 1656 the residents witnessed the battle between the Swedish and Polish armies. In the second half of 18^th century the town started to flourish owing to wise policy of Michał Kościesza Kosmowski - an abbot of the monastery and also Gniezno bishop. He founded so called new town, St. Michael's suburb with the hospital of St. Lazar, a secondary school - Collegium Tremesnesis, renovated the other town's suburb - Skwarzymowo, and rebuilt the gothic church into a monumental late baroque shrine.
The most famous resident is Jan Kiliński - Polish 18^th century national hero, who was born inhere. It is also a place where first Polish prime minister Jędrzej Moraczewski was born.
In 19^th Trzemeszno was an important centre of Polish culture and education in Wielkopolska. Today the town is a local centre of education and industry. There are some big factories as Paroc, Izopol and PPZ as well as some smaller firms. Agriculture plays also important part in town's life as half of the population of the administrative unit of Trzemeszno live in the neighbouring villages. Young people can attend 7 schools starting from kindergarten to secondary schools.

Zespół Szkół Gimnazjum i Liceum of Michał Kosmowski continues tradition of the school started by Kosmowski. The school was opened in 1776. Among their students and graduates there are many well - known people such as Jędrzej Śniadecki, Hipolit Cegielski, general Marian Langiewicz, archbishop Florian Stablewski, mathematician Franciszek Mertens, Jerzy Waldorff. Students of the school took part in independence rises of 1794, 1830-31, 1948, 1863 and 1919 as well as during World Wars I and II. At present the school attends about 900 students at the age 13 to 19. Gimnazjum is an obligatory school whereas Liceum is attended only for those who wish to continue their education in there. Liceum is usually graduated with matura examination. One of today's school features is engagement into European project. This project is the second realized thanks to Socrates - Comenius agency. The previous one was a language project "Lifestyles in Poland and Austria" carried out together with schools from Wels (Austria).