What are you doing to mark this year’s World Book Day?
Each year the World Book Day initiative celebrates books, authors, stories and most importantly, reading. In the UK and Ireland, National Book Tokens are sent out so that children can find a book of their very own something to unlock the power of their minds in a way that the increasing prevalence of digital screens may not provide.
In fact, this is the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.
Share a million stories
This year, the focus is on promoting the benefits of parents and carers reading with children in the ‘Share a Story’ campaign which aims to reach a target of one million stories shared with young readers in 2020.
The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to promote reading for fun. As World Book Day founder, Baroness Gail Rebuck, recalls:
“We wanted to do something to reposition reading and our message is the same today as it was then – that reading is fun, relevant, accessible, exciting, and has the power to transform lives.”
Changing lives
This nationwide campaign hopes to help change children’s lives by making story-sharing a lifelong habit and creating readers for life. Reading for pleasure is in decline, so we want to boost it back up, raise awareness and spark millions of imaginations.
Dressing up?
Although dressing up in costume is a very fun part of the day, the main intention is to get young people to read and love books.
Many schools ask pupils to be involved with the day by coming in costume and then donating money to a charity, such as Book Aid International, which means books can be sent to children in other countries.
The Elementa team are running a competition on our Facebook page for the best costume for World Book Day. Check out our Facebook page to see who wins a book for the whole class!
To find out more about the day, please visit https://www.worldbookday.com