World Book Day provides a unique opportunity to introduce your children to a lifelong love of reading – plus, you can redeem a book token for a free £1 book between 16th February and the 27th March!
Celebrate World Book Day® on Thursday 2nd March in your own way. On a mission to change lives through a love of books and reading, this year’s World Book Day is dedicated to ensuring all children can celebrate reading in their own way.
For the first time ever, World Book Day’s selection of £1 books has been curated with the help of children, making this year’s the most exciting and relatable. Featuring life-size creepy crawlies, brave superheroes, and the chance to choose your own adventure, this year’s line-up will spark imagination and introduce children to a love of reading. Children and young people across the UK will receive their very own £1 book token, redeemable for a £1 book – for free – at their local bookshop or supermarket from Thursday 16th February.
Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, parents’ educational background or income. That’s why World Book Day created six tips to help families start children on a lifelong journey of reading for fun by making sure they:
- Listen to books being read aloud
- Take books home to read
- Choose the books THEY want to read
- Make time to read
- Ask for ideas on what to read next
- Have fun reading!
World Book Day’s hub for families www.worldbookday.com/families is packed full of engaging recommendations, activities, and advice to support sharing stories together as a family, not just on World Book Day, but every day of the year. For early readers and little ones, head over to the “Share a Story Corner”, with short video stories that are easy to fit in around busy schedules and include helpful tips for reading together. Just a few minutes a day can help boost creativity, improve well-being, and start developing a love of books and reading.
This year World Book Day aims to reach more children than ever as it encourages schools, families, and communities to celebrate in the way that best expresses them. Whether that means listening to an audiobook before bedtime, drawing their favourite character or creating a puppet show of their latest story – all reading counts as reading!
World Book Day will be organising all sorts of fun activities and events for World Book Day week, starting from the 27th of February until the 3rd of March. Visit your local bookshop or supermarket anytime between 16th February and 26th March to redeem your token for a free £1 book.
This year’s World Book Day titles are:
Introduction to reading:
Lifesize Creepy Crawlies, by Sophy Henn
(Red Shed, Farshore)
Come on an interactive non-fiction adventure to discover how YOU measure up against some of the world’s most incredible LIFESIZE creepy crawlies – from the teeny tiny to the absolutely gigantic.
Billy’s Bravery, by Tom Percival
(Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
Billy absolutely LOVES Nature Girl. She’s his favourite superhero EVER! He has read all the books, seen all the cartoons, and he’s even got his own Nature Girl costume! So when World Book Day comes round, Billy knows exactly who he wants to dress up as.
Then Billy hears a nasty voice in his head. What if he looks silly? What if his friends make fun of him? Going out in a costume can be scary, even if you are dressed up as your favourite character in the whole world. Can Billy be as brave as Nature Girl?
Bedtime for the Burpee Bears, by Joe Wicks, co-written with Vivian French, illustrated by Paul Howard
(HarperCollins Children’s Books)
The Burpee Bears love to have fun – and that includes bedtime! From trying to brush their teeth without squirting toothpaste everywhere, to putting on their pyjamas the right way round, there’s certainly a lot to keep everyone busy. But the best part of all is settling down together for quiet time before they finally close their eyes.
For early readers:
You Choose Your Adventure by Pippa Goodhart, illustrated by Nick Sharratt
(Puffin – Penguin Random House Children’s Books)
Welcome to your adventure!
What will you wear?
Where will you go?
Who would you like to meet on the way?
Go on . . . YOU CHOOSE!
Marvel Spider-Man the Amazing Pocket Guide, by Catherine Saunders
(DK Publishing)
Become an expert on all things Spider-Man with this bitesize pocket guide!
Discover everything you ever needed to know about Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse! Is Spider-Man speedier than Spider-Ham? Who has more fighting skill, Venom or Vulture?
Dave Pigeon: Bookshop Mayhem, by Swapna Haddow, illustrated by Sheena Dempsey
(Faber)
Dave Pigeon and his trusty sidekick, Skipper, are on the hunt for biscuits, as per usual. Biscuits and good stories.
Where better to go than a bookshop? Surely there’ll be a healthy supply of both . . .
Only, pigeons aren’t exactly welcome in bookshops. Feather-flapping chaos ensues with inevitably hilarious results!
In addition, for the regular, confident readers:
The Boy with Wings: Attack of the Rampaging Robot, by Lenny Henry, illustrated by Keenon Ferrell
(Macmillan Children’s Books)
A Dragon Realm Adventure, by Katie & Kevin Tsang
(Simon & Schuster Children’s Books)
Kay’s Brilliant Brains by Adam Kay, illustrated by Henry Paker
(Puffin – Penguin Random House Children’s Books)
Strangeworlds Travel Agency: Adventure in the Floating Mountains, by L. D Lapinski
(Hachette Children’s Group)
Tackling challenging topics:
Boot It! by A. M. Dassu
(Old Barn Books)
Being An Ally: Real Talk About Showing Up, by Various Authors
(DK Publishing)
