World Book Day has been around for 23 years now. It is a registered charity on an important mission to give every child and young person a book of their own. It’s also a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and most importantly, a celebration of reading.

Here are a few ideas to help you celebrate the occasion in your school or setting:

Nursery/Preschool

  • Visit your local library and get the librarian to share a story
  • Put on a ‘reading breakfast’ buffet for children and their parents, carers or siblings. Get parents to bring in a story (it could be in their home language, a family favourite or one from their childhood) and set up lots of cosy corners where books can be shared. It’s a great way to get families meeting and children to be passionate about their favourite books
  • Hide illustrations from favourite books around the setting and ask the children to find and match them to the books.

Primary

  • Using Claire Balding’s book ‘The Girl Who Thought She Was a Dog’ as inspiration, why not get pupils to dress up as dogs and give their full attention to a someone they wouldn’t normally talk to in the classroom for at least a minute, making a new friend
  • Set up a school competition called ‘Design a New Cover for your Favourite Book’. The winner gets theirs made into a school display
  • Visit your local Waterstones so the children can exchange their tokens for books

Secondary

  • Get your students to write the title of a book that means the WORLD to them on a card and then pin them around the library or the English corridor
  • Why not turn the library or your classroom into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Set the scene by making a chocolate river with huge coloured sweets, attach colourful streamers to the ceiling, get an Oompa Loompa cut-out so the children and staff can put their faces in to take photos. You could even do a treasure hunt around the school hunting for books and add a special touch with a real chocolate fountain!
  • Bake a cake and then decorate it in the shape of a book/author/character. It can be a bake off or just for fun.

If you haven’t already, head over to the World Book Day site where there are lots of free and fun resources as well as activity packs to help encourage children of all ages to come together and celebrate reading. Discover more.