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World Book Day 2025

World Book Day 2025 will take place on Thursday 6 March 2025.

This annual celebration of authors, illustrators, books and the joy of reading is one of the highlights of our year at the National Literacy Trust!

World Book Day provides a fantastic opportunity to focus on reading for pleasure, supporting children's autonomy in book choice, and embedding a habit of reading that brings a wide range of benefits.

We're always hugely excited to work with our friends at World Book Day, the charity whose mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.

Read on to access reading for pleasure resources, ideas and activities that can encourage a love of reading throughout the whole year.

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World Book Day £1/€1.50 books/tokens

Each year World Book Day releases a brand new line-up of £1/€1.50 books, and issues tokens to schools that have registered. The deadline for registration has now closed.

If you have a query about your registration, tokens or the books, please contact World Book Day directly by emailing wbd@education.co.uk or hi@worldbookday.com.

You can find answers to many questions in their helpful World Book Day FAQ section.


Teaching resources and activity ideas for schools on World Book Day and beyond

World Book Day celebration ideas - book choice and pupil voice

Drawing on the six elements that we know support children to read for pleasure, we developed this collection of fun ideas that champion both providing pupils with choice, and giving them a voice, as they progress in their reading journey. Great for World Book Day, but also full of inspiration to support reading for pleasure throughout the year.

Download: World Book Day celebration ideas - book choice and pupil voice

Celebrating favourite characters and books

We want to make sure no child is left out of World Book Day, and understand that that families may be under significant financial and time pressures. This resource provides step-by-step ideas for accessible, classroom-based fun that provides an alternative to dressing up. We aim to ensure that every child can participate in World Book Day, and can celebrate the stories they love, without an expectation for families to provide a costume.

Download: World Book Day top hats and potato characters

World Book Day: The Great Big Footy & Booky Quiz

Designed for: pupils aged 8 to 12 (Years 4, 5, 6, and 7, P 5, 6, 7 and S1)

Our annual fast-paced, fun, interactive quiz features two rounds of questions (one football-themed, one reading-themed) pitched by your footballing heroes and our writer pals. It's great fun for a whole class to take part in together!

Watch the recording from 2024 on the link below, and we look forward to seeing you in 2025!

Watch The Great Big Footy & Booky Quiz Here


Reading for pleasure at home: parental engagement ideas webinar

With our partners, World Book Day, The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, and The Open University we ran a webinar for teachers on how to engage parents with reading for pleasure behaviours.

Watch the recording of the webinar from the link below and download the menu of parental engagement ideas.

Download: Engaging parents in reading for pleasure - a resource for teachers Watch a recording of the parental engagement webinar


More resources celebrating storytelling and reading for pleasure

Premium resources available for those with a subscribed National Literacy Trust membership:

Working with authors and storytellers

Consult our directory of authors and storytellers to help plan a school visit (virtual or in-person) in the coming year.

Read our research on Writer visits and children and young people's literacy engagement for insights on how visits can impact pupils' engagement with reading and writing.

Explore all our resources for schools and early years settings


World Book Day for families

Sharing stories is a great way to enjoy time together as a family, and help children build a love of reading for pleasure. Our Words for Life site is packed with ideas for fun, family activities that support children's reading, writing and speaking at home.

Find family activities on Words for Life


Research: Exploring the impact of World Book Day

The National Literacy Trust was commissioned by World Book Day to evaluate the impact of the initiative on the reading lives of children aged 8 to 11 in the UK.

Our report shows how World Book Day welcomes children into the world of books and reading in two ways: by helping all children become book owners, many for the first time, and by supporting a variety of activities and experiences essential for building life-long readers.

See key findings and download our World Book Day research report.


Learn more about World Book Day

The World Book Day website is a great place to discover more about the importance of reading for pleasure, and a huge range of resources for schools, early years settings and families to enjoy.

We recommend that you check out the 2025 list of £1 World Book Day books, and share your love of reading with your class groups and communities.

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