World Book Day® is a fantastic time to bring the celebration of books to the forefront of everybody's mind. Reading and books are a huge part of my and my family's life and I can’t imagine a day without them! Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success and World Book Day adds that extra sprinkle of excitement that allows us to shout even louder about our favourite books and share why we love them. I look forward to it each year!

Chapter One schools across Doncaster have some amazing celebrations planned for World Book Day.

St Joseph and St Teresa’s Catholic Primary School is taking part in ‘The Great Green Read’. The National Literacy Trust is inviting children to boost their literacy skills whilst learning more about British wildlife and how we can all support and protect it. The children will be dressed as book characters and taking part in a draw-a-long webinar. Throughout the rest of the day, they will be taking part in a range of cross-curricular activities based on traditional tales.

Bentley High Street Primary is inspiring their children to have a deep interest in books and a love of reading by inviting them to dress up as their favourite book characters. They are also encouraging creativity and book-related chat by holding a competition for the best story in a box, decorated pebble or 3D model of a story.

Woodfield Primary School is also encouraging their children to dress up as their favourite book characters. World Book Day itself will be focused around a whole-school project based on the David Wiesner picture book, 'Tuesday'. Each class has a different page to focus on and they will retell what happens on their page through art, music, drama or poetry in a whole school assembly.

Carcroft Primary School has individual celebrations in each classroom planned for World Book Day. Teachers have exciting activities planned for their classes and then will finish the day with a teacher swap to enjoy a story with someone new.

As a teacher, a job I loved but moved on from in 2022, I used to excitedly share my favourite books and do book-related activities with my willing class of 30 story characters on World Book Day! I used to relish the challenge of dressing up as our class’s favourite character to bring learning alive. Now I get to spread the love of reading with my family and friends. We have a large selection of books in our house, and I can’t say no to a new book so my favourite thing to do is recommend and share books with people we know. If your child is suddenly interested in Ancient Greeks, I’ve got a book for that! Want a book where the protagonist is working on making new friends? Have a look at this one! The Chapter One online Global Free Library comes in handy for this too!

Admittedly, I was disappointed this year when my youngest son’s school said they were focussing the children’s dressing up on one author, Tom Fletcher. Not because we don’t love his books, but because we had already started getting a Captain Underpants costume together! We had a browse and found a new Tom Fletcher book that covered a lot of our interests: 'Space Band'. Now we read it at bedtime and love the story and accompanying playlist! My youngest is now going to dress as the main character George. I love that we have discovered a new favourite story!

I know both of their schools have many activities planned to ignite their pupils' love for reading, and I can’t wait for them to come home bubbling to share what has happened. Once they bring home their book voucher we will make a family trip to choose a book from our ever-growing wish list and then end our World Book Day as we do every day, snuggled up with a bedtime story. Perfect!

Chapter One currently partners with schools in Birmingham, Bradford, Cumbria, Doncaster, East Sussex, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, London (Barnet, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Haringey, Islington, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets), Manchester, Middlesbrough and Peterborough. Week in, week out, our 2,800+ corporate volunteers are spearheading a ‘reading for pleasure’ movement by providing Chapter One pupils with one-to-one reading support at the time when they need it the most.

Want to know how your school or company can get involved? Get in touch.