World Book Day: changing lives through a love of books and shared reading

World Book Day’s mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.
 
World Book Day is a charity supported by the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association, and sponsored by National Book Tokens.
 
The next World Book Day will take place in the UK and Ireland on 4th March 2021.

Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income (Source: OECD)
 
So World Book Day wants to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them.

- 3 in 10 of children receiving free school meals say the book they receive with their WBD book token was the first book they had of their own (Source: National Literacy Trust).

- 62.3% children read more books, 46.1% share more books with family and friends, 42% buy more books as a result of World Book Day (Nielsen, Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer, 2019)

 
Creating the Readers of the Future

Bookshops are a big part of what makes World Book Day special. Thanks to you, World Book Day brings the transformative power of reading for pleasure to more children and young people.
 
The World Book Day £1 book tokens will be valid from Thursday 18 February – Sunday 28 March 2021.
 
All retailers are asked to respect the collective on-sale date of 18 February for all World Book Day £1 Books.    
 
Children are encouraged to take their token to their local bookseller or supermarket to:

- swap it for one of the TWELVE exclusive new and completely FREE World Book Day books (including ONE additional book in Ireland and TWO in Wales)

- get £1 off any full price book (€ 1.50 off in Ireland) or an audiobook (costing at lease £2.99 or €3.99 in Ireland )

Children are told that the £1 books are a free gift from booksellers.
 
For full Terms and Conditions, please visit worldbookday.com/books/terms/

Get in touch

This year we’ll have ideas and resources to help you work with local schools and libraries to bring storytelling, author and illustrator events and other creative activities to your shop.

For more details visit worldbookday.com/resources/booksellers/ or download this World Book Day flyer for bookshops.

To order POS and for bookseller queries please contact sharon.benton@booksellers.org.uk