Atividade Parlamentar Get Caught Reading Campaign 2013

Maria da Graça Carvalho participated in the Get Caught Reading 2013 initiative. The campaign featured photographs of European personalities, reading their favourite book with a short text, explaining why they've chosen this book and/or why reading is so important to them. 

The presidents of the European Parliament, European Commission and European Council, participated in this campaign. Their pictures were displayed during an exhibition at the European Parliament, under the patronage of MEP Luigi Berlinguer and supported by MEP Doris Pack, between the 17th and the 20th of June 2013, with an official launch on the 18th. The Federation of European Publishers (FEP) launched in January 2013 the second edition of Get Caught Reading, to promote books and reading.

This campaign had two main purposes: to promote and celebrate reading by European citizens and to increase the importance of books and reading on the political agenda. 

For Ms Cravalho "Reading has always been a way of developing the imagination and creativity, of exploring new ideas and of gaining new information". She added that "As someone with a scientific training, reading is essential, I believe, to problem solving and to understanding the world. However, more than this, reading is also an invitation to travel through history and the world, to understand the diversity of human culture, both one's own and that of others".