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World Book Day 2025 announcements

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World Book Day will be held on 6 March 2025.

For news and updates, please sign up for our newsletter using the form at the bottom of the page.

Keep an eye on this space as we update it with announcements on our 2025 events, activities, and partnerships that will ensure that more children than ever can have the opportunity to discover a love of reading. This is more vital than ever as this World Book Day, half a million children in England don’t own a single book. Our Impact Report for 2024 reveals the effect World Book Day can have on the lives of children across the UK. Our Strategy 2023 – 2027 sets out how we intend to encourage even more children, from all backgrounds, to develop a life-long habit of reading for pleasure, and benefit from the improved life chances this brings them.

Read more in our press release.

THE £1/€1.50 BOOK SELECTION

We’re delighted to share with you the line-up of £1/€1.50 books for 2025 that children can choose for free with their £1/€1.50 book token! With books for beginning, early, fluent and independent readers, there is something for everyone to enjoy. Alongside the 12 titles available across the UK, we also have two exclusive books for Ireland and a World Book Day Welsh title. The books will be available from booksellers from 13 February 2025.

Take a look inside this year’s £1/€1.50 books. We’re so excited to be working with Nielsen BookData again this year to give you an exclusive sneak peek of a few pages of each of the £1/€1.50 World Book Day books. Use their brilliant ‘look inside’ feature to help you choose which book you want in exchange for your £1/€1.50 book token!

The £1/€1.50 books are also available in braille, large print & audio via Guide Dogs, Vision Ireland, RNIB and Calibre Audio. If you require one of these formats, please click here to find out more.

The token redemption period is from 13 February – 23 March 2025.

RESOURCES FOR CELEBRATING WORLD BOOK DAY

Find everything you need to prepare for your World Book Day celebrations in education settings and at home on our Celebrate World Book Day page, including our Primary School Toolkit, Secondary School Toolkit, Early Years Toolkit and our School library staff and home educators packs, fun activities, resources, display and celebration materials.

World Book Day and our 2025 £1/€1.50 publishers on dressing up templates and ideas to create low-cost costumes related to the 2025 £1/€1.50 books. The pack includes a workshop outline to run this as a whole class activity you can find this here.

We  also have some brilliant competitions including the ever-popular Design a National Book Token competition in partnership with National Book Tokens.

BOOKSHOPS AND RETAILERS

Over 4,000 booksellers will be taking part in World Book Day 2025, hosting events and activities to inspire children and reach those less likely to be readers. Over 400 independent bookshops and retailers across the UK and Ireland including The Works, WHSmith, Waterstones,Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda will be gifting the £1/€1.50 books and welcoming children, families, schools, and local communities to choose a book and discover more about the exciting world of reading.

£1/€1.50 tokens can be redeemed for any £1/€1.50 book from Thursday 13 February to Sunday 23 March 2025 in bookshops, bookshop chains and participating retailers. Alternatively, they can also be used as a £1/€1.50 contribution to any other book – at the retailer or booksellers disrection. The single-use digital token can also be downloaded from the World Book Day website.

Be sure to keep an eye on your local bookshop’s website and social media channels to stay up to date with what’s on offer in your area or visit our events map.

FUNDRAISING FOR WORLD BOOK DAY

In the UK, up to 500,000 children (1 in 15) don’t have a book of their own. This goes up to 1 in 10 for children receiving free school meals. Having access to books and developing a love of reading for pleasure is vital for a child’s future. Our vision is to see more children, from all backgrounds, developing a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and benefitting from the improved life chances this brings them. By making a donation or raising funds for World Book Day, you can help us change lives through a love of books and reading.

Click below to download our 2025 Fundraising Pack!

Find out more about fundraising here.

EXCITING EVENTS FOR 2025

This year we have some amazing online events for you to integrate into your celebrations. For all the details visit our events page.

World Book Day Online Events:

BEN DEAN VIRTUAL EVENT (06/03/25)

  • How do you write an edge-of-your-seat thriller? Join former celebrity journalist, master of suspense, and WBD £1 book author Ben Dean to find out in this virtual session for secondary schools. In this session Ben will introduce his World Book Day story for older readers This Story is a Lie.

GREAT WORLD BOOK DAY FOOTY & BOOKY QUIZ 2025 (06/03/25)

  • Join us and our partners the National Literacy Trust on World Book Day for up to 45 minutes of interactive quiz, featuring top ballers from the Premier League, Football League and the Women’s Super League, cutting it alongside authors at the top of their game.

BBC LIVE LESSON (06/03/25)

  • We’ll be celebrating the joy of books, authors and reading for pleasure in a World Book Day lesson for 7-11 year-olds.

POBBLE’S FREE WRITING LESSON (06/03/25)

Step into the Magic Library with Pobble this World Book Day! Join our free live writing session, designed to inspire children aged 7-11 to create magical stories based on their favourite books. Perfect for celebrating the joy of reading and writing!

To sign up for any of our digital events click here.

WEBINARS

World Book Day In-Person Events:

LIBRARY EVENTS

Funded by Julia and Hans Rausings, World Book Day is working with 40 libraries in high-deprived areas with low literacy levels to help create a legacy around reading for pleasure. Libraries in areas where there is limited access to retailers/bookshops will welcome local children to swap their £1/€1.50 book tokens for books, followed by an exciting event in Spring, to inspire local families to continue enjoying reading together long after the day itself.

Four library events, supported by Arts Council England through its National Lottery Project Grants programme, will also bring to life the World Book Day 6 Principles through exciting activity with £1/€1.50 book authors.

BOOKSHOP TOUR

Some of our World Book Day £1/€1.50 author will be at their local bookshop sometime between 13th February and 7th March.

Public Events:

  • Thursday 6 March – Julia Donaldson will be at Steyning Bookshop (sold out)
  • Friday 7 March – Nadia Shireen will be at The Book Nook
  • Saturday 8 March – Kiran Millwood Hargrave will be at Waterstones Oxford. Booking available now.
  • Saturday 8 March – Ben Dean will be at Waterstones Peterborough. Find out more.

School Events:

  • Wednesday 19 February – Palas Print bookshop will be hosting a schools event with Duncan Brown and Helen Flook
  • Friday 7 March – The Thoughtful Spot will be hosting a schools event with Tom Palmer

ADDITIONAL PARTNERSHIP ACTIVITIES

BBC

This year will include a brand new BBC Teach Live Lesson which will be available to watch on CBBC, a deeper content partnership with Tiny Happy People and a collaboration with the returning children’s writing competition, 500 Words.

McDonald’s Happy Meal® 

McDonald’s will be supporting World Book Day 2025 across all its UK restaurants with a special range of Happy Meal® boxes. The £1/€1.50 book token will feature on every single World Book Day-themed Happy Meal® box during the promotional period ensuring tokens are available to millions of children during this time and will be supported by further marketing in-stores.

National Literacy Trust

There are lots of opportunities for families to get involved in the hugely popular annual ‘The Great Big Footy and Booky Quiz’ this World Book Day. Find out more here.

MEDIA AND COMMERCIAL PARTNERSHIPS

National Book Tokens is our headline sponsor and has been for over 20 years.

  • YOTO

Yoto is our Official Audio Partner for the second year running and are the sponsor for our token competition this year. Available to enter from 13th February.

  • Rubies

Rubies, the renowned global costume manufacturer, will be the official dress up partner for World Book Day 2025. As part of an All Dressed Up donation scheme, Rubies, in partnership with Parentkind, will donate up to 100,000 costumes to children in deprived areas.

  • Jigsaw Education Group

Jigsaw Education Group are producing free resources based on their Jigsaw Outdoors programme (as part of their bigger Jigsaw PSHE programme) which are World Book Day themed, encouraging active engagement with reading outdoors, at both school and home. Find their resources on our website here and even more brilliant resources on the Jigsaw Education Group website here.

  • Go Henry

Select a limited-edition GoHenry x World Book Day prepaid debit card to help support your child’s money journey and all proceeds from this card will go to World Book Day. Available from Wednesday 12 February 2025.

  • National Trust

National Trust, are joining the fun for the first time, with a range of World Book Day celebrations taking place at up to 80 places across the UK. Check out or events map to see the exciting locations involved.

  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are offering a secondary school the chance to win a class trip to see the show in London’s West End. Members of the cast will also visit a local secondary school to celebrate reading for fun.

  • Impact Bookmarks

Impact has an exclusive range of eco-friendly bookmarks are crafted from recycled leather and printed with environmentally friendly ink. Featuring fun illustrations by our fabulous 2024 illustrator Vivian Truong, you can personalise with your school logo or take your pick from the ready-made range! 10% of every sale will be donated to our charity.

  • Tatty Devine

Tatty Devine has created a 16-piece jewellery collection, inspired by some of its favourite books, authors, and genres. Launched on 25th January 2024, 10% from each piece sold will be donated to World Book Day.

  • Kents Cavern

Celebrate World Book Day at Kents Cavern! Join them for storytime sessions held in the captivating atmosphere of the caves, where tales come to life surrounded by natural beauty and more. Find out more here.

  • TeeMill

Coming soon! Exclusive apparel from TeeMill, designed by some of this year’s illustrators.

 

We welcome the opportunity to work with partners who share our commitment to changing lives through a love of books and reading. We work with those who can help us do more to achieve our mission to promote reading for pleasure and offer every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. We select our commercial partners carefully and work with them in a range of ways, from one-off fundraising events to longer term partnerships. Find out more here – Work With Us. – or email us at [email protected]

World Book Day is a registered trademark. This means you must have our written consent through a formal licensing agreement to use the name ‘World Book Day’, our logo or any of our artwork assets.