World Book Day

World Book Day will soon be upon us.  This is the 18th year of World Book Day and it will be held on March 5th.  The purpose of World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is to encourage children to explore and discover the joy of reading.

I think one way to get children excited about reading is by encouraging them to write their own stories.  One of the ideas in our Planning Ideas Pack is for the children to make their own kamishibai.  Even the youngest of children can take part if you annotate for them.

These photographs were kindly sent to me by Aiden Griffen who teaches in reception class.  Aiden read our kamishibai story of The Gingerbread Man to the children.  The children then went on to make their own kamishibai and produce an amazing display in their classroom. Thanks for the photos Aiden!

World Book Day makes me think of books from around the world. When I was researching the story of The Gingerbread Man I discovered many variations of the story from around the world.  I have to admit that one of the most astonishing discoveries was of the story of The Wee Bunnock!  As a Scot I had never heard of this version of the tale. There are two stories which follow the familiar pattern, one has a nice rhyming verse which builds as each potential diner is unable to catch the bunnock.  The fox prevails in the end in both stories.  Both stories are written in local dialect and can be found in The Popular Rhymes of Scotland with Illustrations collected by R Chambers, which I borrowed from the library.  A bunnock or bannock is a savoury oat biscuit/oatcake.

My research also took me further afield.  I discovered The Cajun Gingerbread Boy by Berthe Amos and The Matzo Boy by Dianne de Lass Casas.  A few more are listed in our Planning Ideas Pack or you can do some searching to see which corners of the globe you reach.

Where ever you are in the world I hope you enjoy World Book Day 2015.