World Book Day

LET BOOKS TRANSPORT YOU

On March the 1st, World Book Day!
This year's World Book Day celebration of books and reading is set to be the biggest ever.
Now in its fourth year, World Book Day has grown into a huge annual event. 2001 will be the brightest, biggest and best World Book Day yet, with literally thousands of book-related activities planned all over the country:

Happy Hour Relay

A selection of some of the most interesting and exciting events happening on the day starting early in the morning at one end of the country, finishing in the evening at the other end. A Securicor Omega Express van will be zipping from place to place collecting donations and books for Book Aid International.

7.30 am THE POSTMAN ONLY DELIVERS FREE BOOKS ONCE…..
The Royal Mail gets the relay rolling with the postman from Selba Drive in Brighton delivering free books on his daily route. The postie will be accompanied by local Brighton authors, including PAUL STEWART and CHRIS RIDDELL, authors of World Book Day £1 book Cloud Wolf and LOUISE RENNISON author of the acclaimed novel for teenagers, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging.
9.30 am COME ON BABY LIGHT MY FIRE…
Get Caught Reading with the Fareham Firefighters down on the coast, if your favourite book is a bit of a sizzler you won't have any problems here! Donations from the surrounding area will be collected for Book Aid International by The Book People, an organisation dedicated to bringing books to the large majority of the population that do not visit book shops by visiting readers in their places of work.
11.00 am BOOKS TRANSPORT YOU
Join authors from the Random House Group, including QUENTIN BLAKE and JACQUELINE WILSON as they spend the day aboard trams, buses and tubes from across the ages at London's Transport Museum. Activities, readings, signings, workshops and trails will be showing London schoolchildren how books can transport them to exciting new places. Organised in association with The London Libraries Development Agency and London Arts.
2.15 pm TODDLERS STORM NOTTINGHAM CASTLE
250 toddlers meet MAISY THE MOUSE at Nottingham Castle. RICHARD PLATT will also be launching the paperback of his book for older children, Castle Diary, in the caves under the Castle, and FLOELLA BENJAMIN will be talking to parents.
4.45 pm ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR AT LONGSIGHT LIBRARY, MANCHESTER
Authors DARREN SHAN, ANNIE DALTON, ROBIN JARVIS and COLIN HAWKINS entertain hundreds of schoolchildren with a funfair theme. Jugglers and circus
performers will join in, and there will be a puppet show and poetry karaoke.
National Literacy Trust's Reading Champion and ex-basketball commentator PAUL SLEEM will also be there.
6.15 pm CARRY ON GETTING CAUGHT READING MATRON!
Regular Book People customers at The Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan - nurses, doctors and hospital staff snatch a few minutes R & R away from the ER to enjoy a good read and collect books for Book Aid International.
7.45 pm THE DEAD GOOD POETS SOCIETY GET A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS IN LIVERPOOL

A poetic ending to World Book Day at Waterstone's in Bold St, with Carole BALDOCK, PAT FEARON, ALISON ROSTRON, DAVID BATEMAN, TIM STONE and COLIN WATTS getting lyrical in aid of Book Aid International.

SOME OF THE MANY OTHER EVENTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY
On World Book Day at 1.30 pm, Letts Educational launch their Liverpool FC Study Guides at Anfield, with members of the Liverpool team showing young footie fans how to get caught reading. Contact Adrienne Maguire on 020 7689 3064.

MELVIN BURGESS, DAVID ALMOND and MALORIE BLACKMAN will discuss 'Books behaving badly' at Winchester Guildhall at 7pm. Tickets are free and available on 01962 846 084.

'Go Ape on World Book Day' with libraries in Lincolnshire. Each library will be decorated as a different animal and organising a week of animal based activities, with guest visits from animal illustrator, GLYNN WILLIAMSON.

There will be a story-telling festival using classic fairytales at the Threshfield Primary School, in Skipton. The Assembly will be taken by the Witch from Hansel and Gretel and will be about 'The Witches', 'The Worst Witch' and the Harry Potter books. Afterwards, each pupil will tell their class a story from one of the books they have read. Contact Helen Jarvis on 01756 752 348.

Cramlington High School, Northumberland and the town's public library will be organising a 'who's reading what' poll in the local shopping centre. There will also be a digital camera photograph display of 'unusual people reading unusual things in unusual places'. The school also plans to have storytelling to the younger pupils and a synchronised reading event. Contact
E Armstrong on 01670 712 311.

From 7am, David's Bookshop in Letchworth, Herts will be holding a sponsored 24 hour Harry Potter readathon in aid of the local Hospice. Customers, local schoolchildren and local MPs will read 5-15 minute slots throughout the day and night. There will also be poetry readings and a book quiz. Contact Paul Wallace on 01462 684 488

'Get caught reading children's books' at Welwyn Garden City for a mass family reading party of over 1000 people on Saturday 3 March. Family reading groups were set up in January and have been meeting in the run-up to World Book Day.

Contact Sue Jones on 01707 281 583.
Waterstone's, Canterbury has events from 7.30am to 9pm: breakfast and a free magician for children from 8am, a drumathon in aid of the NSPCC, led by the Brouhaha Drummers at 4.30pm; a circus hour including a tightrope walking workshop from 5.30pm; the creator of the 'Willy' books, ANTHONY BROWNE, will be talking about his work at 7pm; and resident poet Simon St Clair Terry will be presenting Poetry by Candlelight, with a chance for local 'would-be' poets to read their own work. Contact Waterstone's on 01227 456343

The Central Children's Library in Croydon is holding a Baby Bounceathon and Toddlerobics from 10am-5pm, including teddy bears' picnic and tea-time tales with author ROSE IMPEY. Contact Margaret Fraser on 020 8760 5400 ext 1051

In Birmingham throughout the day there will be 'Words on Wheels' - special poetry vans parked in Chamberlain Square. They will be encouraging people to write a poem for a Record Breaking Chain of Poems. There will be poets onboard - including NICK TOCZEK, ROGER STEVENS and JAN DEAN - signing and doing informal poetry readings and performances. Contact Annie Everall on 0121 303 3368.

In Plymouth the whole town is going book mad for the day. Plymouth Argyle players will be reading in the goal mouth. A bus load of passengers will be reading on their way to Central Library and 'A Big Sleep' will be organised with books in a bedshop.

Wakefield Libraries will be celebrating reading with Castleford Tiger Andrew McNally, Chief Inspector Ray Helm of West Yorkshire Police and Mayor of Wakefield, Norman Hazell Under the title Caught Reading, a display of photographs at 13 libraries - shows people from all walks of life 'caught reading' books.

Grimsby Central Library will be holding an 'Elmerathon'- have you got reading stamina? Every time you read a book colour a piece of gigantic Elmer - see his trunk grow and grow. Also fun with the Elmer quiz.

Winsford Library in Cheshire will be holding an event on Saturday 3rd March with three stalls in the Library who will accept the £1 vouchers - Red House, Usborne and one run by JOHN MALAM (best-selling children's non-fiction author of recent Channel Four book The 1940s House). MacDonalds have agreed to give a Happy Meal Voucher to the first fifty children who purchase a book on the day.

BOL.COM is hosting online interactive author interviews all day. Featured children's writers are TERRY DEARY, ROBIN JARVIS, LOUISE RENNISON and DIANA WYNNE JONES.

SOME OF THE MANY SCOTTISH EVENTS
The celebrations start at The Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh with 180 Primary School Children singing the The Gruffalo Song, one of the World Book Day £1 books with the book's author JULIA DONALDSON. (10-11am). Julia will then be heading off to Callendar Woods in Falkirk to bring the Gruffalo to life in the company of 60 children from Hallglen Primary School. (1.30-2.30pm)

Oban based author HARRY HORSE and his dog Roo will be island hopping on the day. He'll be visiting Salen School on Mull (10am-11am) before heading off to Iona for an event at the school there (2.30-3.30pm).

In Glasgow, the Pollock Learning Centre, Maryhill Library and Baillieston Library have been running a six-week programme of events for After School Clubs, in which the children create their own books. This will culminate in a "book launch party" for the children on World Book Day with authors including KEITH BRAMPTON, JULIE BERTAGNA and PAUL GERAGHTY, to which parents and teachers are invited. (4-6pm)

The day culminates back in Edinburgh, where bestselling crime writer, IAN RANKIN will be doing a signing for James Thin Booksellers at The Lothian and Borders Police Information Centre off the Royal Mile, in the company of a new addition to the police force, a puppy named Rebus! (6.30-8.30pm).

Students at Crichton University Campus and Dumfries College have decided to take this year's World Book Day themes to heart. They will be getting together as many people as possible for a "happy hour" of reading. Photographers from the college photographic course will be catching on camera the students reading to produce a series of portraits resulting in a BIG BOOK.

SOME OF THE MANY WELSH EVENTS
180 Anglesey school children will be taking a journey of literary discovery on an Irish Ferry Boat. Welsh authors and illustrators will travel with the children to Dublin, where they will link up with Irish authors and school groups at The National Gallery.

A St David's Day poem, specially written for World Book Day 2001 and St David's Day, will be broadcast from St David's Hall, Cardiff, on March 1st, on Radio 3. A group of schoolchildren from Llandaff High School, Cardiff will recite the poem.

GET CAUGHT READING
Bestselling cook, Jamie Oliver, Olympic gold medal-winning boxer, Audley Harrison, Nigella Lawson, Suggs from Madness, star of 102 Dalmatians and television's Hornblower, Ioan Gruffudd, and writer and broadcaster, Tony Hawks, have all lent their support to a new reading initiative - Get Caught Reading, to be launched on World Book Day. The Campaign is aimed at people, particularly in the 18-34 year age group, who have yet to discover - or may have forgotten - the pleasures of reading. Each celebrity has been photographed reading a favourite book to form a series of eye-catching advertisements.

Thanks to Book Tokens Ltd, principal sponsor of World Book Day 2001, and publishers and booksellers, over 14 million children - every schoolchild in full-time education - has received a £1 World Book Day Book Token via their school which can be redeemed for three weeks around World Book Day itself.

In 2001 there are four specially jacketed World Book Day £1 titles by leading children's authors.These books appeal to four different age ranges so that every child has the opportunity to exchange their £1 World Book Day Book Token for a book to suit them and encourage them in their reading. The titles are: for 3-5 year olds, The Gruffalo Song by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, for 5-9 year olds, Little Wolf's Postbag by Ian Whybrow and Tony Ross, for 8-12 year olds, Cloud Wolf by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell and for teenagers, Shop Dead by Kate Cann.

The Book People were established in 1988, their vision is to bring books to the large majority of the population that do not visit bookshops. Today The Book People sell over 12,000,000 books a year to people in workplaces, from factories to fire stations, nurseries and play groups to hospitals and solicitor's offices, through their network of self-employed distributors and their monthly mail order catalogue. They have kindly offered their support by distributing 30,000 posters and hosting several events.

Notes to Editors

A full list of regional events on World Book Day is available from the web site www.worldbookday.com, sponsored by fireandwater.com.
The £1 World Book Day Book Token can be redeemed from Monday 19th February to Saturday 10th March 2001 inclusive (minimum redemption £1.95, one transaction per Token).
Book Tokens Ltd is the leading sponsor of World Book Day 2001 and has sponsored, for the second year running, both the production of 13 million World Book Day Book Tokens and the World Book Day Schools' Pack.
World Book Day 2001 is also supported by fireandwater.com, through its sponsorship of the World Book Day web site - www.worldbookday.com -
and Securicor Omega Express, through its distribution of 50,000 Schools' Packs and point of sale material into libraries and bookshops.
The WORLD BOOK DAY tradition began in Catalonia, Spain, where people celebrate St George's Day by giving a book and a rose to loved ones (St George is also the patron saint of Catalonia). World Book Day has since been designated by UNESCO as 23 April (Shakespeare's birthday) and was marked in over 30 countries around the globe last year.
This year due to popular demand from teachers, World Book Day has been brought forward to Thursday 1st March, in the Spring Term.
World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is a joint venture between The Publishers Association and The Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland.

Compiled by Point Internet Services for business4india.com