Book Clubmaxi

The Book Club Maxi was in the 1960 years in Austria a figure from the Youth Book Club for reading promotion was created.

The youth book club is an association of educators and booksellers who have set themselves the goal of making reading commonplace. That meant that every schoolchild got a yearbook at the beginning of school, in which there were a few short stories that were designed and selected according to the age groups. At the end of the yearbook, four vouchers were attached for the preferential purchase of age-appropriate books, so lower-class children could also purchase books cheaply.

The character of the book club master has passed away. The Austrian Advertising Museum - specializing in Austrian specialties, especially in commercials - still has a picture of this figure.

The book club maxi was also available as a ventriloquist dummy. The Viennese castle actor Tassilo Holik moved to elementary schools with the book club maxi and practiced the now rare art of ventriloquism to encourage children to read.

The yearbook was not limited to elementary schools, there were yearbooks up to grade 8, copies from 1967, 1968, 1969, 1976 and 1983 are in the private collection of the Austrian Advertising Museum.

A photo of Dr. Holik and Buchklubmaxi can be found in the anniversary publication "60 Years of the Book Club of Young People", Vienna 2008. One copy is in the "Austrian Advertising Museum" collection.