The origin of world book day 

 World Book Day is a well-known charity event held every year in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the first Thursday in March. On World Book Day, children in UK schools are given a voucher to be spent on books. 

World Book Day is a registered charity which means It doesn’t raise funds for itself but does support Book Aid International and Readathon as its nominated charities, encouraging schools to hold special fundraising events for less fortunate children. 

World Book Day is not funded by the British Government although the Quick Reads portion does receive support from ACE, DIUS and NIACE. The funding for World Book Day activities comes principally from the major sponsor, National Book Tokens and the UK book trade (publishers and booksellers). 

The event is the local form of the original, global World Book Day organized by UNESCO to encourage reading, publishing, and copyright, and commonly observed on 23 April. Organizers in the UK moved the celebration to avoid it overlapping with Easter school holidays and with St George’s Day. 

The United Kingdom’s own version of World Book Day began in 1998, by Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Globe Theatre in London. Millions of schoolchildren in the UK were given a special £1 World Book Day Book Token (€1.50 in Ireland) which applied a discount to any book in ant UK bookstore. All World Book Day point of sale and the £1 book carried the special World Book Day logo to help combine the project through all outlets. 

Since then, World Book Day UK has followed a similar pattern, progressively rising in fame each year to encompass more initiatives, such as Spread the Word, Quick Reads Initiative and Books for Hospitals. Every year, the number of children receiving a World Book Day Book Token has increased. 

In 2000, instead of a single £1 special collection, four separate £1 books were published, covering a wider age-range. Since then, each year has seen a new set of £1 books published. 

In 2006, World Book Day began its support of and association with the Quick Reads initiative for adult emergent readers. 

In 2007, World Book Day celebrated its 10th anniversary with the publication of 10 £1 books. Since then, every child in education in the UK and Ireland is entitled to receive a £1 World Book Day Book token every year. They can swap their WBD token for one of the specially produced £1 WBD books or they can get £1 off a full-price book or audio book priced £2.99 or more. 

 

And with that, happy world book day! 🙂