Happy World Book Day!

Discover all the different ways we’re celerating here at Scholastic!

Scholastic Book Clubs and Fairs

Scholastic Book Clubs and Book Fairs are both accepting the £1 Book Vouchers that every child in the UK will be presented with today. We are promoting books priced as little as £1.99, so are doing everything we can to ensure that every child can have a book of their own to enjoy. There are plenty of activities on the Book Clubs website for children, including exclusive material that is only available to them through our Scholastic Book Clubs.

Hundreds of schools around the country are celebrating WBD with a Scholastic Book Fair – and now schools can help to get their young readers really excited about the Book Fair, by showing our new animated sneak preview. Take a look at this on the Scholastic website.

Scholastic Children’s Books

Scholastic Children’s Books has a special £1 World Book Day book again this year. Dan Freedman’s character Jamie Johnson is facing new football challenges in this brand new exciting story; Born to Play. Dan Freedman has been taking part in key WBD events all week – he was at the leading Waterstone’s event at their flagship store in Piccadilly yesterday and he has spoken to children at a unique WBD Guardian newsroom event. Today, on the day itself, we are holding a unique event at Tottenham Hotspur where Dan will be in conversation with England and Spurs striker, Peter Crouch. A large group of very lucky local school children will be there to hear them. As you can imagine there has been a lot of press interest in this event, from both literary journalists, sports journalists and TV news channels – it is going to be an exciting day.

Many other authors are taking part in events today too – all around the UK: Julia Donaldson (Scotland), MG Harris (Canterbury), Julia Jarman (Guildford), Josh Lacey (Surrey), Tony de Saulles (Gloucestershire) Kjartan Poskitt (Durham), Martin Brown (Dorset), Sally Nicholls (Brighouse), Dinah Capparucci (Lewes) and Anne Cassidy, Sarah McIntyre, Sam Osman, Karen McCombie – in London.

In Ireland, Alan Quigley and his team are supporting an event with Roddy Doyle with three schools near Dublin. One Book One, which is a community based project and encourages everyone to read the same book, has chosen Roddy’s Scholastic novel Wilderness as their favourite story to experience.

We Are Writers!

Every school received their World Book day pack back in January. Each pack included an invite to create a special We Are Writers! book to celebrate World Book Day. Using Tiddler by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (in which a little grey fish has a big imagination and tells tall tales), children are invited to write their own tall tales and have these put into their We Are Writers! book, that has an introduction by Julia Donaldson and an Axel Scheffler/World Book Day book cover. Schools also have access to Tiddler-based resources and activities for children. They have until 31 May to take part.

Scholastic magazines

In our magazines – in print and online – Scholastic author Alex T Smith shares his love of reading and provides top tips for reading aloud to children. There is also a guide to creating a World Book Day assembly – a great way to start the day with your children. Nursery Education PLUS has featured an activity spread on Thomas the Tank Engine, who also has a £1 WBD book this year.

The Education Show

And it doesn’t all stop on World Book Day – the Education Show at the NEC Birmingham is hosting a Literacy Forum tomorrow, lead by the National Literacy Association and starring Michael Rosen. Scholastic is a key sponsor of the event and every delegate is receiving information about our best-selling Read & Respond series – including copies of the R&R title We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.

Visit www.scholastic.co.uk/wbd for more information.