Thursday, 3rd March will be the 25th World Book Day. In the UK, World Book Day is an annual event firmly fixed in most school’s calendars and, love it or loathe it, many schools come off timetable and provide a day to spotlight reading through creating a full programme of book related activities for their children to enjoy.

For creative parents, World Book Day provides a chance to show their prowess in creating costumes to impress, whilst for others it may involve creative thinking to turn everyday clothes into a well-known book character, thank goodness for David Walliams! Teachers carefully plan a day of book-related activities which children enter through their classroom door, which has been painstakingly turned into an impressive book cover. Few schools really consider the impact the day will have apart from putting the spotlight on books, reading and fun.

The original idea of holding a Book Week to celebrate books began in the US in 1916 by Franklin Matthiews, librarian for the US boy scouts. He recognised that literacy was life-changing and aimed to promote higher standards in children’s books. Few would disagree the power books have; they can open-up conversations and change attitudes, create understanding and enable children to explore topics in different ways. 

Schools realise that representation in literature is important and matters, being able to identify yourself in a book, seeing other children like yourself or like your family members or people in your community, can help children feel included, and create a sense of belonging; books can also help to change attitudes.

We need to ensure that our World Book Day activities offer an opportunity to celebrate diversity and provide an opportunity to focus on inclusion. Just as Rose Ayling-Ellis on Strictly Come Dancing last season shone a spotlight on what it was like to be deaf, your World Book Day can do the same.

So when planning your World Book Day consider:

    • Being inclusive in your choice when inviting an author to give a speech or talk
    • Being inclusive when choosing someone to visit to read to your class
    • Host a signed Storytime
    • Asking your pupil librarians to do an audit of books in your library that are inclusive
    • Invite students to select some books focused on diversity and inclusivity they would like to add to your library collection
    • Making sure that your curriculum text books include a rich diversity.
    • Purchasing more books for the library that positively portray children ensuring that all are represented
    • Ensuring that everyone is represented in your Book Day displays
    • Adding recommendations of books which are inclusive to your library display
    • Asking children to write a review of books which are inclusive and embrace diversity
    • Providing clear, verbal descriptions of illustrations when reading stories out loud. 

When planning your activities it is important to ensure that they are fully inclusive for all children and of course these ideas and activities do not need to be limited to World Book Day but can happen at any time of the year!

Author: Sarah White