World Book Day 2023

What is World Book Day? 

World Book Day is an annual event that aims to encourage children, to develop reading for pleasure into a lifelong habit. This year, it is being celebrated on the 2nd March. World book day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading.  

The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to encourage young people to foster the enjoyment of reading regardless of their reading ability. Since then, World Book Day has been celebrated each year and is a day dedicated to celebrating reading and all things book related. Each year £1 book tokens are given out which can be swapped for a selection of £1 books at many participating book shops and retailers.  

Speaking on BBC’s Newsround, the founder of World Book Day, Gail Rebuck said “our message is the same today as it was then- reading is fun, relevant, accessible, exciting and has the power to transform lives”.  

Themes: 

Each year World Book Day has a theme, this year the theme is “YOUR World Book Day” with the focus on inclusivity and making sure everyone can enjoy and celebrate it.  

Last year’s theme was “You are a reader” as World Book Day celebrated its silver jubilee year in the United Kingdom and Ireland on March 3rd, 2022. The message communicated is that children from all walks of life should have the same opportunities of education through reading. 

Other previous themes have included:  

• “Discover a Million Stories” (2019): This theme focused on the idea that there are endless stories to be discovered through reading and encouraged people to explore different genres to enjoy. 

• “Share a Story” (2018): This theme emphasised the importance of sharing stories and reading with others, and encouraged people to host book clubs, reading groups, or story time events to promote reading and discussion. 
• “Escape to Everywhere” (2017): This theme encouraged people to use reading to escape and explore new worlds and ideas. It included resources and ideas for activities that allowed people to “travel” through literature. 

How can you celebrate World Book Day?  

There are lots of exciting ways you can celebrate world book day this year! Here are just a few ideas you might want to try at home or school: 

• Dress up as your favourite book character. 

• Complete a book cover quiz- have different well-known book covers for each age phase. 
• Make a meal described in a story e.g. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Giant Jam Sandwich (cross curricular links to D.T) 
• Guess the story/ character tea party- decorate a room/ table with different clues and pupils must guess which story character the table is set for e.g. the tiger who came to tea 
• Story shoebox competition- pupils use a shoebox to create a story scene from their favourite book  
• Potato book character competition- pupils use a potato to create their favourite book character e.g. Fantastic Mr Fox. 

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