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Rachel Airey

Head of Books at WHSmiths

Katie Bareham

CEO at the Doorstep Library

As founding CEO of children’s literacy charity Doorstep Library I hope to bring knowledge and understanding of some of the barriers to reading for pleasure in disadvantaged homes, and of how to engage with socially isolated families.

Doorstep Library is a small literacy charity that is community based and working closely with its beneficiaries. As part of the advisory group, I can connect with our family committee and parent trustees to help WBD better understand the needs of disadvantaged families and how to ensure reading for pleasure is part of every childhood.

World Book Day’s values are very similar to those we uphold at Doorstep Library, so I can respect and engage with them wholeheartedly.

Emma Bradshaw

Head of Campaigns at the Booksellers Association

Emma Bradshaw is Head of Campaigns at the Booksellers Association, the membership organisation for booksellers in the UK & Ireland. They represent over 95% of booksellers – chains, independents and specialist bookshops.

Emma and her team look after Books Are My Bag, a year-round, consumer-facing campaign, run by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland. It exists to make connections between bookshops and people who value them; to raise awareness of the work booksellers do within their communities; and to encourage people to do their book-shopping with their local bookshop.

Selina Brown

Founder of the Black British Book Festival

Selina Brown is an Author and Event Producer. Selina was an avid reader from a young age. At 16 she became the Youth MP for Nottingham, her love for words gained her two Degrees and a Masters. After living and working in New York, Jamaica, Kenya and Gambia she wrote the picture book series Nena that became popular in 2020. The same year Selina launched the intentionally renowned Black British Book Festival, which celebrates emerging and established Black British authors across all genres of literature. The Black British Book Festival is now the largest Black Literature festival in Europe.

Lisa Bywater

Head of Marketing at National Book Tokens

Lisa Bywater is Head of Marketing at National Book Tokens, where she has worked for more than six years. A former bookseller at Ottakar’s and Foyles, she also worked for a few years for the Royal Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the team which provides Talking Books and other accessible reading formats for adults and children.

An avid bookworm from a young age, she is passionate about books and reading, and can usually be found channelling her inner bookseller to connect people with the books she knows they’ll love. At National Book Tokens, she’s lucky to be able to put into practice her core belief that reading should be accessible to all, not least through the organisation’s sponsorship of World Book Day. She lives in South East London with her husband and two children.

Katy Cattell

Group Marketing and Communications Director at Hachette Children’s Group

I have been working with and advocating for World Book Day since I started working in children’s books 15 years ago, and I feel passionately about its charitable aims, in particular ensuing every child and young person in the UK and Ireland has the opportunity to read and love books. I look forward to working on the Strategic Advisory Group to support their forward strategy, offering my passion and enthusiasm for children’s books and inspiring young people to read, knowledge of the publishing industry, along with my experience in strategic thinking and planning, reputation management, brand storytelling, marketing, communications, and project management.

Child Poverty Action Group

Child Poverty Action Group’s education team works to understand the financial barriers that prevent children in low-income households from making the most of school life. By hearing the experiences of pupils and families, we unpick these barriers, understand how they can be addressed and advocate for change – ensuring money is never an issue at school. This work includes research with pupils into fun events at school, such as charity days and dress up days. We aim to use our evidence and findings to ensure World Book Day is inclusive of all children, regardless of household income, and no one is left out or excluded.

Nikki Daigneault

Head of Marketing and Events at Gardners

I am the Marketing & Events Manager for Gardners. I’ve been in the book trade for 18+ years and am passionate about getting books into the hands of readers! With so much to choose from, I love being able to hand-pick and recommend books people will love. In my spare time I can often be found at the beach, rain or shine! Otherwise, generally huddled with a book somewhere, and of course, with a cup of tea in hand!

A.M. Dassu

A. M. DASSU is an internationally acclaimed children’s author, director at Inclusive Minds, and one of The National Literacy Trust’s Connecting Stories campaign authors.

Phoebe Demeger

Librarian at Centre for Literacy in Primary Education

Phoebe is the Librarian at CLPE (the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education). She manages the charity’s vast collection of children’s books, helping to ensure that the very best titles find their way into Primary schools, always with an eye on high-quality and inclusive texts, so that every child has the opportunity to view themselves as a reader, a writer and see themselves reflected in the books they encounter. She has also worked as a Bookseller for over five years in both commercial and independent bookshops, strengthening her knowledge of the children’s book market and fine-tuning her aptitude for offering the perfect book recommendation.

Emily Drabble

Head of Children’s Books Promotion and Prizes at the BookTrust

Emily Drabble is head of Children’s Book Promotion and Prizes at BookTrust, leading on getting books into the hands of children that will engage them into reading regularly via their teachers, health visitors, parents, grandparents or carers. Her speciality is inclusive books and she leads on the BookTrust Represents programme. In her work at BookTrust she works with a team of children’s book specialists, sharing the books they read, analysing them and their qualities to be loved by children. Before working at BookTrust, Emily was the Children’s Books Editor of The Guardian Children’s website and she is a regular guest on Frank Cottrell Boyce and Nadia Shireen’s Island of Brilliant podcast, recommending children’s books.

Aimée Felone

Chief Executive at Knights of

As the founder and managing director of Knights Of our mission has always been to bring underrepresented voices to the forefront of commercial children’s publishing. We have an unwavering commitment to our and work tirelessly to engage with gatekeepers across the industry, including booksellers, teachers, and librarians to support non-traditional community spaces and communities with events, outreach, marketing and partnerships. Sitting on the strategic advisory group for World Book Day, I look forward to helping shape and constructively use my own experience so that we might better serve every child and young person and connect with readers and those who don’t yet see themselves as such.

Angela Foster

Children and Young Person’s Librarian at Stockton Borough Libraries

Angela Foster is Children and Young Person’s Librarian at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Libraries. Angela has enjoyed participating in wider children’s activities than just her day job and is a past judge for the Carnegie and Greenaway Medals and is currently a Trustee for the Northern Children’s Book Festival. Prior to that she worked at a secondary school as school librarian which is where her passion for children’s literature and looking to provide opportunities for all children and young people to have the chance to become readers was ignited.

Jake Hope

Dee Lalljee

CEO at The Bookery

I am a passionate advocate of the importance of reading for pleasure and investing in access to books for children. Over the last decade I have overseen the growth and development of The Bookery, a not-for-profit independent bookshop with extensive community projects supporting literacy and wellbeing, which won both Independent Bookshop of the Year and Children’s Bookseller of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2022 and was recognised ‘not just as a bookseller but as a force for good’. We have seen the power of books to change lives and understand the vital importance of inspiring children with reading for pleasure.

Sarah Mears MBE

Programme Manager at Libraries Connected and Empathy Lab

I am currently Programme Manager at Libraries Connected supporting public libraries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I am past Chair of ASCEL (the Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians) and founder of EmpathyLab which focuses on the power of literature to build children’s empathy. I believe a love of reading for pleasure is the greatest gift we can give our children and so have always supported World Book Day as a key milestone in the reading year. I am passionate about initiatives that promote social justice and want to support World Book Day’s ambition to reach all children particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Charlotte Raby

Programme Developer at Wandle Learning Trust

It has been my mission as a teacher, lecturer and advisor to the DfE to implement practices that ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds become readers. This may seem a simple proposition but for the past 25 years I have seen how complex this is at national and local levels. One way we can make a difference is by expanding teachers’ knowledge of children’s authors and illustrators so they recommend and share books that are reflective of children’s lives and the diversity of life in the UK. Another is to work out how to get more books into the hands of more children. This is what I hope to do through working with this inspirational charity.

Kimberley Sheehan

Campaign Manager at The Reading Agency

Books and libraries have supported me throughout my life. Because of this, I passionately advocate reading for pleasure, first as a teacher and in my current role as Campaign Manager at national reading charity, The Reading Agency.

I work with over 50 publisher and prize partners to run accessible and engaging campaigns marketed at practitioners and reading groups to reach new readers and provide yearlong reading activities. Last year we reached over 365,000 people with these campaigns.

I am thrilled to be part of the group to bring my expertise as well as my experience of connecting with underserved communities.

Helen Tamblyn Smith

Owner of Wonderland Bookshop

Helen is the owner and manager of Wonderland Bookshop, a children’s bookshop in Retford, North Nottinghamshire. With a background in communications and project management, Helen is passionate about children’s literature and ensuring that every child has access to a wide and diverse selection of books.

Through Wonderland, she has established Pay it Forward schemes and worked on book drives to enable children and young people to choose their own books to keep.

Alison Tarrant

Chief Executive of the School Library Association

Alison Tarrant is the Chief Executive of the School Library Association and is Co-Chair of the Great School Libraries campaign. Alison was named a Bookseller Rising Star in 2018 and was a school librarian before taking up her current role. The School Library Association is a charity supporting everyone involved with school libraries, whether TAs, library staff or Heads and Governors. They provide CPD on reading and school libraries, offer library design and reading culture consultancy as well as releasing guidance to help all children have a positive reading experience.

Kimberly Whittham

Author & Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator

Currently working in secondary education as an assistant Senco, I am passionate about giving young people in Manchester space on the bookshelf. My debut middle grade book, Quiet Storm, was published by Usborne on 8th June, and is about friendship, family and finding your voice.

I believe I can bring knowledge and experience in reaching children in the education setting and can support WBD in making sure all children are included in WBD activities, including those whose identities are often underrepresented.