World Book Day 2024

Posted by theministry on 6th March 2024

Happy World Book Day one and all. Join us as we root through our fantastic library and discover some of the brilliant reads inside.

We’re big fans of books at the Ministry of Stories. They offer fantastical worlds to explore, real life stories to inspire and a place to escape to, whatever your age.

There is power in books too, with reading for pleasure being ‘the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success’. Which is why our library is always open to every young person who visits our writing centre. Our young writers can take books home or curl up on the sofa at Ministry HQ to take a break from writing.

We’re also chuffed that we can now say – thanks to generous support of donors to our Build Our Bookshelves campaign, publishers and local bookshops – our library now boasts over 800 books spanning two rooms.

From fiction and non-fiction to graphic novels and poetry, our books now also better reflect our local community and the wonderfully diverse world we live in. With titles such as the Little Leaders and Rebel Girls series, as well as books featuring central characters with a range of lived experiences, varied family or housing situations, where the lead characters are often from the global majority.

Our library also now hosts a broader diversity of authors, who we celebrate as creative catalysts, and where possible, build on from visits they have made to Ministry of Stories. Over the past few years, we’ve have been thrilled to host neurodivergent writer Elle McNicoll and USA-author Jason Reynolds, and their work can now be found proudly on our shelves.

So, a huge thank you again to all the donors who supported our campaign in 2021 – it’s taken a while to refresh the shelves (lots of research, reading and recovering from the pandemic) but we are proud of the library we now own and your names are hidden inside the front covers. Maybe take a peak when you next pop in.

Of course, we also asked our young writers what they wanted to find in the library, with Mega Robo Bros by Neill Camero and the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan coming out on top.

What else have they been enjoying reading? We asked a few of our young writers:

So here’s to books – the difference they can make, and the pleasure they can bring.

Looking for new reads for your young person? Head over to the World Book Day website for author recommendations, reading lists and more.

A huge thank you to the following publishers and bookshops for donating so many of our fantastic books and making sure our library is chock-full of fantastic reads for all our writers.

 

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