It’s World Book Day this week! I’m so proud to see Dave Pigeon (Bookshop Mayhem!) out in the world alongside the other amazing World Book Day books, helping kids discover reading for pleasure. And this year is even more special because children were involved in the book selection for the very first time.
Reading for pleasure can be life changing, which is why World Book Day UK has created a list top tips to help encourage regular reading. More info and resources available on their website.
Reading for pleasure is also the biggest indicator of a child’s future success. 500,000 UK children don’t have a book of their own. This increases to 1 in 10 for children receiving Free School Meals, which makes what they do at World Book Day so crucial.
This week, I’ve been lucky enough to go on a virtual tour with my books to see as many young readers as possible.
Sheena and I started off our week with The Great World Book Day Draw-Along with the National Literacy Trust. Thank you so much to everyone who joined in. At last count there were 100000 pupils and teachers who had drawn their very own Dave Pigeons. You can still watch on demand here until 24th March 2023. And do share your drawings and I will add them to my birdrilliant gallery.
I then met with Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 from Alexandra Primary School and we created heaps of new story ideas for Dave Pigeon.
We heard about poisonous gases in water bottles, evil dictator penguins, space adventures and pen and pencil case wars. I had a blast hearing so many fantastic story plans.
EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 helped me draw lots of grizzly bears as we discussed living with a grizzly bear like Dad from My Dad is a Grizzly Bear. They all did a fantastic job and I saw lots of brilliant young illustrators in the making.
Cliftonville Primary also joined in the Grizzly Bear fun, drawing a sleuth of grizzlies who looked ready for a World Book Day party.
I rounded off my week with a pigeontastic event with Settle Stories. Speaking to lots of classes, we created a bounty of new adventures for Dave Pigeon, involving Lego ladders, obsidian and diamonds, missing books and time-travelling pigeons. Thank you so much to everyone who joined in – I hope you carry on writing your Dave Pigeon adventures because I would love to read them.
Thank you also to First News who put together this brilliant feature on World Book Day.
Happy World Book Day everyone! I hope you spent the day escaping into a book. And a HUGE thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of Dave Pigeon (Bookshop Mayhem!) – it has been a dream come true to see Dave Pigeon roosting in the Top 3 of the bestseller book charts.
