Celebrating a Different Kind of World Book Day

Category: Blog, Librarians During Lockdown

It’s World Book Day this week! Celebrations will be very different to this time last year but we’re still determined to celebrate all things books, reading and stories. 

We’ve asked our committee members what they’re planning to do in their schools to mark WBD, and we’d love to hear what your plans are. Tag us on Twitter @slgscotland – and whatever you end up doing, we hope it’s fun!

Competitions 

There are competitions designed to spark creativity (a STEM haiku–writing competition: ‘Hope in the time of Coronavirus’) and a competition designed to promote positive health and wellbeing: ‘Book a Spot’ at Elgin Academy encourages pupils, parents and staff to explore new places close to home by identifying 12 reading spots in Elgin from photos. Pupils can also win points by sharing their own favourite reading spots. Other librarians are building on the popularity of the Masked Singer by running a Masked Reader competition and inviting pupils to guess which teacher is behind the book. 

Debates 

Shakespeare vs YA – that’s a debate that might get heated… 

Escape Rooms 

It’s now even easier to run your own escape room virtually, with the help of MS Forms. Some of our librarians have adapted their escape rooms from existing templates, and others have created their own.  

Podcast 

One school is launching a new reading podcast and has asked pupils to choose the name, which will be revealed on WBD.

PowerPoints 

This can be a high impact – but low-pressure way – to encourage departments to celebrate WBD. One school is sharing a ‘Great Reads inspired by a love of…’ PowerPoint, with each slide featuring three books themed around school subjects (like PE or Maths). Every department will be sent a slide, and can either show this at the beginning of online lessons or share it on their department’s social media account. 

Quizzes 

Guess the book title from the emojis, guess the book from the first line, the official WBD quiz … the online world has opened up even more possibilities for inventive quizzing.

Videos 

Another high-impact but low-pressure idea. Librarians have been busy creating videos that can be shared on Microsoft Teams, from a Staff & S6 Joy of Reading film (where staff and pupils talk about why they think reading is the best) to a STEM celebration of World Book Day (featuring the school’s STEM Captains and S6 volunteers reading out the poem ‘Relativity’ by Sarah Howe). 

World Book Day resources 

Our librarians will also be signposting the brilliant content on the WBD website – from the official World Book Day song, to a Bingo Challenge hyperlinked to different official resources.