World Book Day 2017 Aiming for a Million Books

World Book Day 2017 will be the twentieth year for the fantastic event, launched originally in the UK in 1997 in response to a decline in children reading. Each year for the last nineteen years, a selection of £1 books are offered to young readers across the UK to celebrate the day and to give children affordable reading material and hopefully a love of reading.

To date, the event has given away over thirteen million books! Last year there were 789,738 £1 books given away for World Book Day, and as 2017 is the twentieth year for the event, there’s a target of one million books for the anniversary event. While the books are set at £1, all school children are given a book token, and this means the whole event is effectively a giveaway for school children.

Back in 1997 when the event launched, children’s engagement with reading was at crisis point. The previous year a government report was released, stating that 42% of 11-year-olds failed to achieve level 4 in reading and writing upon entry to secondary school. It was this report that inspired the creation of World Book Day, an event that has now spanned twenty years.

The event gives every child, regardless of their social status, or access to libraries and bookshops, the chance to get a free book that will hopefully give them a love of reading (after all, us addicts know that one book is never enough).

Even if children claim to hate reading, it can often simply be that they haven’t found the right book and with some fantastic, and prolific children’s authors such as David Walliams and Jacqueline Wilson supporting this event, there’s a good chance they soon will!

Next year’s books are already announced and they are as follows. Your child will receive their £1 book token at school on March 2nd, along with the chance to dress up as their favourite character for a fun, absorbing day of literature too.

2017’s £1 Books are: