World Book Day: Has It Had Its Day?

We are here again… it is the first Thursday in March, and so we must be in want of a national outcry.  Yes, World Book Day is upon us once again: that annual festival of hurriedly Amazon-Primed costumes and polyester-fuelled meltdowns (have you been in the staff room the morning of World Book Day).  The intentions are noble; the execution, increasingly, is something between a logistical nightmare and a thinly veiled extortion racket.

Once, World Book Day was a simple affair: a charming, if slightly chaotic, celebration of reading.  Now, it exists in that nebulous cultural space where fun goes to be monetised.  Somewhere along the way, the actual books became a footnote in a day designed largely to make parents question their life choices at 7am while attempting to craft a convincing Matilda out of a school jumper and sheer willpower.  And that’s just the primary lot - at secondary level we have blow-up dinosaur costumes (why?) and lots… lots of sexy Dystopianesque figures.

Of course, the day still provides joyous moments - teachers bringing out their fun side… and then realising that they really have no authority when dressed as one of the dalmatian puppies (yes, that’s me, and no sharpie doesn’t come off your face that easily).  And the £1 book token remains a noble concept, even if it barely covers the cost of a dog-eared leaflet these days.  But are we missing the point?  If World Book Day’s mission is to encourage our little scholars to read, then surely it’s worth asking: is dressing up as a character more effective than, say, actually opening a book?

So, what’s the alternative?  How do we champion reading without descending into a polyester apocalypse? 

Ditch the guilt – if we want kids to see reading as enjoyable, we have to stop treating it like a superior alternative to screens.  Reading shouldn’t be framed as the punishment for too much Xbox - it should be something they want to do.  Read to them, read with them, and most importantly, let them see you reading for fun.

World Book Day, in its purest form, is a wonderful thing. But maybe - just maybe - we don’t need to bankrupt ourselves in the name of literary appreciation. The best way to celebrate books? Just read one.