World Book Day is one of the highlights of our library year at Barrow Hills. We love the annual celebration of authors, illustrators, books and the joy of reading, and love to take the opportunity to have a whole week of interactive activities celebrating books and reading.
Reading for pleasure is at the heart of World Book Day. We know that making every day a book day can have significant impact on children and young people’s wellbeing, which shows just how important it is to encourage children to read for pleasure at all stages of their childhood.
On Monday, Mrs Mason and the Drama Captains did a lovely assembly to introduce the week’s plans.
On Tuesday, the Pre-Prep had a visit from local Esher-based author/illustrator Helen from the Buttonhole Press, where the children took part in an interactive story time and craft activities based on her book ‘Blossom & Bud’.
On Wednesday, and throughout the week, we had lots of lovely donations of books via our online Book Wish List held with A New Chapter Books, a brilliant online children’s book store specialising in diversity and inclusion.
On Thursday, the children in Years 3-8 had a visit from charismatic Welsh author, Colin R Parsons. Colin led a whole department introductory session in the Chapel where he really engaged with the children telling jokes and sharing stories about his life, then each year group had a 45 minute story-writing session in the library, which also involved lots of fun and creativity.
Finally, the grand finale on Friday, when everyone came dressed as their favourite book character and had their photo taken for the World Book Day photo wall and the online photo gallery, as well as getting a chance to have a sneak preview of the Usborne Book stall before hopefully making a purchase at the end of the day when their parents arrived.
It was lovely to see the children in all their costumes, as usual, everyone made such a lovely effort and the winners were announced in assembly today.
I want to personally express a MASSIVE thank you to all the parents who donated books via the wishlist or bought books at the Usborne stall, and also to ALL my colleagues who supported me in delivering the week successfully.
Mrs Emmett
