Today, Thursday the 5th March, is World Book Day in the UK. A day dedicated to celebrating all things literature and encouraging people to find joy in reading. This year’s World Book Day also coincides with The National Year of Reading – a UK-wide campaign designed to inspire more people to make reading a regular part of their lives. Not just children, everyone.
In my own attempt to join in with making content to amplify The National Year of Reading, I’ve already written a post about how reading does not have to be inaccessible; there are more ways to access books than Waterstones. You can read that post here: https://oneshowatatime.co.uk/2026/02/26/the-national-year-of-reading-how-reading-can-be-accessible-for-all/
World Book Day and The National Year of Reading are more important than ever. According to both the World Book Day and the National Book Tokens website, only 1 in 3 children actually like to read for pleasure. This is heartbreaking when studies have shown reading for fun is the single biggest indicator that a child will grow up to enjoy a happier and more successful life, more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational backgrounds or their income. These facts are even more heartbreaking when there’s such a variety of books out there for kids to choose from.
In order to encourage children to read more, every year World Book Day has a mission where every year, a child will own a book of their own. This is done through their book tokens; World Book Day gets book tokens to children through schools and early year settings, and these are also through McDonalds Happy Meals, magazines, and lots of partnerships in communities. These tokens can even be sent out to home educators.
Every year, more than 23.5 million book tokens are distributed across the UK and Ireland, and 1 in 4 children receiving Free School Meals say the book they ‘bought’ with their £1 book token was the first book they had of their own.
Research has shown, according to World Book Day, that 6 things help children want to read at home:
- Share – read or listen to audiobooks together
- Access – having reading materials around them (including audiobooks, ebooks and graphic novels and comics)
- Choice – they pick what excites/interests them most – the possibilities are endless!
- Time – quiet moments help reading happen – even just 5 minutes!
- Help – get ideas from someone who knows what they like
- Fun – connect reading to other things they enjoy – be that football, dancing, dinosaurs…or all three!
I’ve always been an avid reader; I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love books. That is because I’ve been lucky enough to always have supportive parents and access to books; we’d have monthly trips to the library where they’d let me hire whatever I wanted (from the kids section!). I was also given books as presents, and my dad would make up his own stories for my brother and me to send us to sleep with fun worlds in our imaginations every night.
World Book Day used to be one of my favourite days as a child – I got to talk about books, share my favourite books and characters, and even dress up as one. I remember going to the bookstore with my token, picking a new book, and more often than not, I would have read the whole thing in the car before I’d even reached home.
I know I’m lucky, I acknowledge that, and know that not every child has supportive parents like this. But it doesn’t just have to be parents who encourage reading in children. Schools, librarians, friends, other family members – anyone can spark that love of literature from an early age.
As is tradition with World Book Day and the book tokens, there are £1 books released every year that can be bought with the tokens – meaning there’s no financial worry and the token is enough to leave the shop with a book. There are many to choose from, from popular, award-winning authors.
This year’s selection includes a new Peppa Pig book, a book from A.F. Steadman (author of Skaandar), and Chaos at the Chocolate Factory, a book by Sibeal Pounder, inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There’s a book from Unicorn Academy (the very same Netflix show), books about quests and football and animals, and even a nonfiction book, too. The books are available in braille, large print and audio, so no one misses out.
In the year 2026, we have never been in a better position to get kids into reading, and to have such a broad selection of World Book Day books is only one small example of that. We are living in a world and time where we are lucky to have such a vast amount of resources at our fingertips. With such a range of resources and diverse selections of reading materials, this ensures that there really is something for everyone. We really have never been in a better time to be encouraging reading, when books are so accessible to all.
In America, the list of banned books is ever-growing. In Afghanistan, the Taliban government has removed books written by women from the university teaching system as part of a new ban which outlaws the teaching of human rights and sexual harassment (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kn7yyzrjgo ). Censorship expands beyond the USA – for a lot of countries with strict policies or strict governments, books are one of the first things to be restricted in terms of who can read what. (It took me less than half an hour scouring the internet to find huge amounts of information on this; it’s well worth a look if you want to know more).
In the UK, we are very fortunate, where, to my knowledge, there are absolutely no restrictions on literature at the moment, but who knows for how long this will be the case. In 2022, Simon James Green, a popular English author of books such as Gay Club, was due to appear at John Fisher boys’ school in Purley, but the archdiocese of Southwark said the event could not be permitted, as the church said a visit by the author fell “outside the scope of what is permissible in a Catholic school”. To read more on this, you can do so here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/09/catholic-church-bans-visit-by-gay-author-to-london-school
With that being said, at the moment in the UK, almost anyone can read anything, and we all have more literature at our fingertips than is imaginable. Girls can read books about epic sword fights and dragons, and boys can read books on unicorns and mermaids.
Graphic novels, epic fantasy, literary fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, non-fiction, autobiographical…the list is endless. Books of all forms and from all cultures and backgrounds mean that everyone has something they can find and relate to, see themselves in. From football in space, or books featuring every mythological creature one could think of, epic fantasies with heroes and villains or tender romances to make one weep…any reading is reading. I truly believe there’s no such thing as someone who doesn’t love reading, but that they simply have not found the book for them yet. There is a book out there for everyone.
On the day of posting this, Thursday 5th March, it is World Book Day. Teachers and librarians across the country will be celebrating this day in a variety of ways, at the very least with a great deal of people dressing up as their favourite fictional characters. Children will be given their vouchers to use on a book of their choice, and who knows…the book they buy with it may be the one that opens their imaginations to an endless world of possibilities. But as I said at the start of this article, this love for reading doesn’t need to only come from schools; it can also come from family members and friends’ support and encouragement. Developing a love for literature at a young age can lead to a lifelong love for books and stories.
World Book Day may be traditionally aimed at children to get them reading more, but it can be equally enjoyable for adults, too. I, for one, will definitely be buying a new book to celebrate, and at the time of posting this…well, enjoy this photo of myself dressed as one of my own favourite fictional characters too. (I’ve done it many times as different characters across the years; this is the 2026 character!).
Stories can make people more empathetic and more loving, and can help people learn about new countries and cultures, all without leaving their seats. With so many ways to access books and so many choices out there, the question is not necessarily why not, but more importantly, where to start? Which adventure to go on first?
To find out more about World Book Day, click here: https://www.worldbookday.com/about-us/
To find out more about The National Year of Reading, click here: https://goallin.org.uk/about/
To find out more via the literary trust website, click here: https://literacytrust.org.uk/about-us/national-year-of-reading-2026/#:~:text=The%20National%20Year%20of%20Reading,part%20of%20their%20everyday%20lives.
One Show at a Time 