World Book Day

So carrying on from Ireland Reads Day last week today we celebrate World Book Day. Sure we are just mad for the books! 😀

World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and shared reading. Our mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.

Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. We want to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them.

World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. It is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.

The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to encourage young people to discover the pleasure of reading.

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.”

World Book Day Website

A big part of today is where kids pick a character from their favourite book and dress up as them for school. I was trying to think of who I would pick if this was around in my day and I’m finding it difficult. I loved Roald Dahl but my favorite books were an obscure selection of books where each book was a tale from One Thousand and One Nights. I remember Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves being the first book I ever read completely on my own and I was very proud. The story holds a special place in my heart because of that.

I always enjoyed reading but my love of reading came from discovering Judy Blume’s Deenie and every Point Horror I could get my hands when I was around 11 or 12 and then I discovered Mills & Boon in our attic and the rest as they say is history. 😀

All in all, books open the world to us and because of that it’s super important to give that gift to as many people as possible. It’s really as easy as one book possibly changing a life!