During the first week of March, The Hall was full of festivities to celebrate World Book Day on the 6th. Here’s a breakdown of what World Book Day is, why it’s always celebrated at The Hall, and what we can continue to do to nurture the love of books within children.
What’s World Book Week?
World Book Day is a charity event held annually in the UK on the first Thursday in March. Every World Book Day since its inception in 1998, every child in full-time education is given a voucher to be spent on books. This is why, at The Hall, Senior and Middle School boys had the opportunity to attend our book fair, kindly brought in by Primrose Hill Books.
The event was originally organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. In the UK, it became a local celebration earlier in the year to accommodate the Easter Holidays.
Younger boys in the Junior School were given books by authors such as Gregg Stobbs, author of ‘Cloud Boy’, whilst Years 2 and 3 were given ‘Grumpfort’ by Jamie Hammond. Assemblies were held with each of the authors, after which, each boy got a signed copy made out to them.
Senior and Middle School boys were ecstatic to meet one of their favourite authors, S.F. Said, known for his novels Tyger, Phoenix, and Varjak Paw, among others. Said kindly stayed entire afternoon on World Boy, giving talks to the boys and signing each of their book copies.
Why do we celebrate it?
Research shows that reading is imperative for a child’s learning. It builds concentration, improves memory, empathy, vocabulary and critical thinking. It further uplifts literacy skills necessary to perform better in school. In fact, reading to children 6-7 days per week ‘has the same effect as [the child] being almost 12 months older’ according to research by The University of Melbourne.
As reading is so important for children’s learning, we aim to make World Book Day fun! We want to show our pupils the joy of reading as it takes them on new adventures, allows them to experience new corners of the world, and enables them to delve into the minds of those who are different than themselves. For younger boys at the Junior School, we have an annual costume parade. Boys, teacher, and staff dress up as a character from a book and get to present their costumes to the whole school. It also enables boys to get creative, thinking about what the characters they’ve read about, why they want to choose them, and how to develop elaborate and unique costumes to compete to be the costume winners. World Book Day (or week) is simply packed with fun.
How do we practice World Book Day everyday?
While World Book Day is full of non-stop book fun, practicing World Book Day everyday need not be as elaborate.
Cultivating a love for and appreciation of books is easy to do at home as well as school. At The Hall, we have silent reading periods, giving boys ample time to jump into the books they enjoy. Additionally, our Junior and Middle and Senior School libraries are fully stocked with novels our pupils want to read. Here’s what can be done at home:
More tips can be found here.