To help you make the most of World Book Day in your school, we’ve come up with a few different ideas that the children (& you!) might enjoy trying:
Have a “real” World Book Day
- Challenge the children to find & read books by authors from other countries (not the UK). Eg; Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
The World in a Book
- A Library quest to start or end on World Book Day (you could post the challenge on the entrance to your Library)
- Create a display of books that represent cultures from around the world such as : recipes/countries/religion/celebrations/transport/fashion
- The display will grow as children locate books. If time is short create the display yourself in advance of WBD
A World of Books
- Using bookcovers and books set up displays that take children beyond their usual choices.
- Extend into an assembly with pair/small groups of children representing each book – you could use your Library monitors/Reading champions
- For each of the world book day titles, find 4 other books that children would also like – they could be by the same author or within the same genre
For example:
- Nadiya’s Bake Me a Story : stories of inspirational women or other information books about cooking
- My Book About Me : books about the body and senses, feelings, families
- The Bolds (Julian Clary & David Roberts) : Mr Gum, The Grunts, Sputniks Guide to Life on Earth, The Accidental Billionaire, Who Let the Gods Out?
Other suggested titles: Wonderwise series (Mick Manning), You Choose/Just Imagine (Pippa Goodhart & Nick Sharratt), The Museum of Me/All Kinds of Fears/I’m Here. Where are you?/You are Stardust
Reading miles
- Why not launch a reading challenge where the children are given miles for the number of books/chapters read?
- They could get extra miles for reading books from different countries .
- Give out passports which are stamped when they visit different countries. How far will your miles take you?
A Book World of Colour
- Choose a book about a character who wears your favourite colour,
- Or you could tie in with school uniform colours or school ‘houses’.
- Every class could have a colour and they have to read books about characters that wear that colour….
- Prizes for the most inventive choices
Red
- Violet Baudelaire: An Unfortunate Series of Events by Lemony Snicket
- Things 1 and 2 : The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
- Lyra Belacqua: Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
Orange
- The Boy in the Dress: The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams
- Charlie, Lola or Lotta: Charlie & Lola by Lauren Child
Yellow
- Fantastic Mrs Fox: Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
- Man in the Yellow Hat: Curious George by H A Rey
- Coraline (in the film): Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Green
- Peter Pan and Tinkerbell: Peter Pan by JM Barrie
- Babar: Babar the Elephant by Laurent & Jean de Brunhoff
- The Little Prince: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Blue
- Mr Bump: Mr Men series by Roger Hargreaves
- Dorothy: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum
- Peter Rabbit: The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
- Madeline: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Around the World in Eighty Books
How about a class based challenge for the month of March to collectively read 80 books from around the World? You might begin by sorting the books in your class library into the different countries. You could supplement this with a list of suggested titles which are set in different countries and challenge the children in your class to read books from as many different countries as possible.
Happy World Book Day!