World Book Day is an annual event organised by UNESCO involving over 100 countries in which everyone celebrates books and the positive effects of reading!
World Book Day is a great way to make children’s reading a habit and expand the range of children’s reading. World Book Day was created as a tribute to the two famous authors, Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare. You can celebrate World Book Day in many ways, including supporting your local library where you will be able to find all your favourite books.
World Book Day attracts people from all over the world to get reading! You can get your books from anywhere including public libraries, school libraries, charity shops and book shops.
The theme of this year’s World Book Day is ‘Around the World’. You can dress up as a character from around the world, wear traditional clothes from different countries or even dress up as a country’s flag!
Thanks to National Book Tokens Ltd, millions of book tokens have been sent to schools and nurseries all over the UK This means one book token for every child under eighteen in the whole country! You can swap your token for one of the specially produced World Book Day books, which are sold in high street bookshops displaying the WBD icon in their window
(e.g. Waterstones or WH Smiths in Morpeth) or use it to get £1 off any book or audio book costing £2.99 or more.)
What are you waiting for?
World Book Day was first celebrated on the 23rd April 1995 and is still being celebrated now. We are going to interview some of the staff at Chantry Middle School to find out how they are celebrating World Book Day!
We have interviewed Miss Falkingham about world book day.
What are you coming dressed as? “A chilli to represent Chile, the country”
What do you think of this year’s theme? “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to combine our love for reading and geography”
What do you enjoy about World Book Day? “I love it because it brings books to life and engages students in reading.”
What is your favourite book genre? “ I can’t pin it down but I have just finished a book that I really enjoyed called Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I loved it!”
How are you going to celebrate world book day? “By dressing up and finding out what other people dressed up as and why.”
Now we want to introduce you to this charity:
Book Aid International is the UK’s leading international book donation and library development charity. This charity sends books out to places which don’t have books so children find it very hard to learn to read. For adults they send out books on subjects like how to look after their children, farming and health care. Children get the same books that we read.
Book Aid International provides books so that people can change their lives through reading and also to make them happy.
A child born to a mother who can read is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five. So don’t forget to bring in your £1 donation to Book Aid International on World Book Day to help this come true for more children!
By Millie and Kate, Y8
