Happy World Book Day!

So, first off, what I want to know is, why don't we do this in America!? It's World Book Day and here in the UK (or at least in our part of the UK) it seems to be a big deal. We went into Asda a few weeks ago (that's the closest thing here to a Target--not really very close, but a big store that has some house stuff, toys, and food). Anyway, when we went in they had a huge display of costumes, much like you would see in American stores during Halloween, only these were for World Book Day. So much better and cooler than Halloween! All the costumes came from well-known books (only some of which I recognized because I have been really surprised by how little crossover there is between American children's books and British ones...but that's a post for another day).

From what I can tell, schools celebrate this gem of a holiday, and the homeschool community here certainly does. Both homeschool communities I follow had scheduled World Book Day parties, where kids were invited to dress as their favorite character, bring books to swap, and make bookmarks and other book-y crafts. School-aged children can also get one pound tokens for use at local bookstores (I'm guessing these tokens are government-sponsored, but I'm not sure through which agency.)



Unfortunately, all the World Book Day goodness for today has been postponed because the UK is in the middle of an epic winter storm as part of the Beast from the East weather pattern we've been experiencing. (That's actually what it's called, I didn't make up that catchy name.) So, we celebrated on our own, and are excited to go to the rescheduled gathering whenever it happens! (Epic storms here are slightly less epic than those in New England...As you can see from the photo above, we only had about an inch of snow here, but things still got cancelled. To be fair, a blizzard is anticipated this afternoon, with lots more snow and high winds. We're hoping we can go sledding if that does happen!)

Never having done World Book Day before, we just sort of improvised. First, we read some book-themed books with our breakfast reading. We found The Midnight Library at our local library (appropriately) and both kids liked it. Side note: for those of you interested in my continuing flour investigation, that bread is malted "bloomer bread" made from strong flour and wholemeal flour...


After reading our book-y books, we made reading nooks and read, listened to audio books, and looked at books. Then, we did a book craft, inspired by the World Book Day website: we made pop-up books! (They popped up with varying degrees of success...)


My house and rainbow pop-up books did not impress Rebecca, so she decided to make her own cut-out book instead. This is her book entitled Snowball the Penguin Goes to Outer Space:


It has yet to be written, but judging by the illustrations, it will be a cliff-hanger!

Then we baked and ate apple pie. What does apple pie have to do with World Book Day, you ask? Well, I'm not sure. I suggested backing Thundercake from the eponymous book by Patricia Polacco, but both kids insisted on apple pie. (They get that gene from Eric. No way I would choose apple pie over chocolate layer cake!) I'm sure there are lots of books about apple pie, so I acquiesced. Here are the kids enjoying their pie (or making strange faces in between bites of pie...)


We are going to curl back up in our reading nooks again this afternoon, and then for dinner we're having hummus, kofta, salad, flatbread, and zucchini pancakes. That also has nothing to do with World Book Day, so I'm going to find a book about the Middle East and pretend I planned it that way all along...

So now I'm off to go read some more, and all you people in America should go and make this a thing there! (Or am I the only one who has never celebrated this before?)

Comments

  1. din 'illahi1 March 2018 at 21:17

    That does sound like fun!
    Speaking of kid books, one of Cedar’s (and our) favorite books (by a Brit) was The Man, by Raymond Briggs. Our copy came with a cassette tape of the reading of th3 book, which was awesome. Cedar used to listen to that tape every night before bed for months (when he was 9;or 10). I think the book might be out f print. I ordered an expensive used copy for a friend not long ago. Maybe your library will have it, or maybe it is easier to get over there... in any case, keep a look out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachel1 March 2018 at 23:46

      We will look out for it! Our local library is small but part of a county consortium that we can order from so maybe we can get it through that...

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