(4 minute read)

World Book Day is a charity whose mission is to encourage all children to love reading for pleasure. An annual celebration of authors, illustrators, books and the joy of reading, this year's World Book Day will be taking place on Thursday 7 March 2024. But is it just a chance for many kids to go to school dressed up as Spiderman? Does World Book Day really have an impact on reading? These are the important questions!

As an ex-Primary school teacher, I remember World Book Day fondly and how excited the kids got at being dressed up and having the tokens ready to spend at the pop-up book store in the downstairs hall! I think it provides a strong way to embed a love of reading at an early age, and provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to really hound the point about reading for pleasure and autonomy when it comes to book choice - something that I never quite got in my own learning back in the 80s/90s! I love books now of course, and reading to the little ones was always a great joy in being a teacher. 

More studiously however, The Literacy Trust did a comprehensive report on the impact of World Book Day, which found that it helps children in two ways: aiding all children to become book owners, many for the first time, and by supporting a variety of activities and experiences essential for building life-long readers. 

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With all the book tokens given out on the day, children can get their £1 World Book Day book for free with their token, so it really can help ALL children get access to physical books. We asked our team which books they would love to give away this World Book Day:

TYM team Book recommendations:

“I'd go for a picture book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. It's all the tales you know but with a very silly twist and all the tales come crashing together in one chaotic conclusion. Great illustrations and design too. See also The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by the same author.” Darren, Creative Director.

“Mr Gum books are the best books” Matt, Game Developer.

“What do people do all day by Richard Scarry.” Leo, Number Skills Product Manager

“Don’t worry little Crab and the other books in the series by Chris Haughton.” Mor, UX Lead

Remember that there are over 70 books in our reading app Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun too!

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On World Book Day, teachers can look to the World Book day website for fun ideas and activities, or use the day to celebrate a book they’ve already been reading in class. They may also dress up as a book character themselves - bringing great joy and a giggle to their pupils! To the parents out there, we know that it can be tricky to put together a decent outfit for World Book Day so here are some of our team’s Top Tips! 

Kid’s dressing up - our TYM top tips

“Hang on to everything you have in a dressing up box. You'll be surprised what you can pull together in an emergency with a flat cap and fake beard.” Darren, Creative Director.

“I remember dressing up as the Snow Queen for world book day many moons ago. My Mum made me this amazing spangly cape with fake icicles and we made a tin foil spiky crown. Great book that!” Alice, Designer.

“Anything can be made with a big enough cereal box - why not cut a head hole in one side and paint the box to look like a book? Then you can put any title on there, with a few simple touches and recycle it year on year (with a different name)” Kay, Freelance Designer.

We have also made these Teach Your Monster to Read printable masks and Reading for Fun printable masks as a free download!

We really hope you have an amazing World Book Day this March 7th and we hope to see some little monsters popping up in your local school! 

Kay Leathers,
Ex-Primary Teacher and Freelancer