Clare Balding and Tom Fletcher announced as World Book Day authors for 2018

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.

Brain Freeze by Tom Fletcher, illustrated by Shane Devries

The End . . . I know that’s not how stories usually start. But my story is about time travel. And not everything happens in the right order . . .

Izzy's grandpa was an ice-cream man, and he used to tell the BEST stories. There was the one about giving a 99 Flake to a Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt – and another about feeding a Fab to a hungry T-Rex.

But what if they weren't just stories? What if that blue ice-cream van had a secret magic of its own?

Intrigued? Then open this World Book Day book and prepare to get frozen in time...

The Girl Who Thought She Was a Dog by Clare Balding, illustrated by Tony Ross

Fennel and Twiglet are best friends. They do everything together, from curling up in their basket to playing fetch in the park. Twiglet understands Fennel like no one else, especially her life-long dream of winning Crufts.There’s just one problem: Fennel isn’t a dog. And a girl can’t win a competition for dogs, no matter how much she acts like. Can she?

Both books will be released on Thursday 1 March 2018. To find out more about how we're helping every child in the UK to read well by the age of 11, visit our Creative Responsibility pages.

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