WORLD BOOK DAY
2nd March 2017
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
WORLD BOOK DAY – THREE LITTLE WORDS THAT MEAN SO MUCH , AND ONE DAY IN THE YEAR WHEN WE OFFICIALLY CELEBRATE THE MAGIC AND BEAUTY OF BOOKS . AND WHAT A CELEBRATION WORLD BOOK DAY TRULY IS .
Busy lives can often mean that the simple pleasures in life are relegated to the bottom of the to-do list . We have to go to work , do the shopping , clean the house , sort the ironing , pick up the kids , and do the million favours we ’ ve promised everyone else ; and that means that finding time for ourselves tends to be completely forgotten .
Reading is , perhaps , the simplest of all simple pleasures . With just a book ( or an eReader in today ’ s world ) and your imagination , you can go on the wildest of adventures , you can meet the most fascinating of people , you can witness planets burning and worlds being created . You can fall in love , you can despise deeply , you can fight and live and dream and you can do it all from a comfortable chair , a bed , a park bench …
And all of this magic and mayhem that comes from the unique and really rather extraordinary act of reading ( it is , after all , just letters arranged in order on a page – the rest is all in your mind ) is all too easy to set to one side when there are other things to do .
Luckily , World Book Day changes all that . Designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading , World Book Day is celebrated in over 100 countries across the world each year . 2017 sees its 20th anniversary , and will be held on 2nd March . comes from finding a great book . The day is full of activities which encourage children to read , and each school that registers is provided with packs of book tokens ( around 15 million such tokens will be sent out in time for this year ’ s celebration ) and World Book Day resource packs which are jam-packed full of fantastic book-based ideas and activities . The book tokens can be used to purchase one of ten specially selected books , or they can be put towards any other book that the child wants to buy . And really , if a child is happy to buy books , encouraging them has to be the best policy .
And then there is the dressing up , of course ! Many schools allow their pupils to dress up as their favourite character from a book ( not the film of the book , mind you – these need to be truly literary to fit in properly with the theme ) for the day . They might even be asked to bring in a copy of the book that inspired them to show their friends .
Although World Book Day is meant to children the joy of reading , it ’ s a great excuse to finally carve some time out for yourself – so grab a new book , find a quiet spot and enjoy !
For more information on World Book Day , visit www . worldbookday . com
So what exactly is the aim of World Book Day ? In the UK and Ireland , it is all about showing children the pleasure and excitement that
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