We are delighted to announce that Puffin’s Clare Balding and Tom Fletcher will both be World Book Day authors for 2018.
World Book Day, the world’s biggest celebration of reading for pleasure, is set to return on Thursday 1 March 2018, with Clare and Tom among the 10 authors chosen to pen new works that will be available for just £1 (€1.50 in Ireland), or for free in exchange for a World Book Day token.
Over the past 20 years, World Book Day UK has distributed over 290 million £1 book tokens to children and young people across the country. This year, more than 1.2 million book tokens were redeemed and over £650 thousand was raised for charity by World Book Day, enabling 1 in 4 children to purchase their first ever book.
First launched in 1997 as a response to an increasing concern over poor reading and writing standards in children, World Book Day is now a global phenomenon. Alongside activity on World Book Day itself, the charity will be bringing back the incredibly successful World Book Day Award and running a national tour of author/illustrator events around the country. Research by the National Literacy Trust has indicated that 89.5% of children are aware of World Book Day and that, in 2016, 60% of children were inspired to read more by the celebration.
