Booksellers and librarians vow to press on with World Book Day plans despite teacher strike

Booksellers and librarians are vowing to continue with World Book Day plans despite proposed school closures resulting from teacher strikes, though some activities may need to be rescheduled.

The National Education Union (NEU) has voted in favour of strike action throughout February and March unless it can come to a last-minute deal with the government on pay.  The industrial action will be a mixture of national and regional walkouts. 1st February is set as a national strike across England and Wales, while 2nd March, World Book Day, will be a regional strike in the South West, South East and London.  

Annie Rhodes, a bookseller at Norfolk Children’s Book Centre, said: “We have considered how the strikes will affect our plans, not only for World Book Day but for all the other school-related business that we do. As soon as we knew the strike dates, we checked our calendar to see how they might affect us and our school customers and noticed that one of the regional strike days is on World Book Day itself.  

“We will be open as usual and will encourage local families to bring their children in to exchange their tokens for a World Book Day title as usual. We don’t have any extra plans in the shop for World Book Day at the moment—over the World Book Day period we often take our bookshop on the road to schools around Norfolk and beyond to do big book sales which includes the World Book Day titles. We offer this service throughout the school year so I’m sure we will be able to reschedule any book sales or other school events to another date if needs be. We wouldn’t want the children to miss out on the one of the most exciting book-related events of the year.” 

Natasha Radford, co-owner of Chicken and Frog Bookshop in Brentwood, Essex, said: “We always dress up anyway so that will still happen. If the schools are closed, we’ll be offering stories throughout the day. As World Book Day tends to spill out across at least a week we’re hopeful that the strikes won’t have too much of an impact on our plans.” 

Lucas Maxwell, the librarian at Glenthorne High School in London, pointed out that some schools rely on World Book Day as an opportunity to book big-name authors. He said: “Sometimes, this is the only author they have budgeted for throughout the year and rescheduling them can be tough as many authors are very busy throughout the entire week.  

"Other schools will go ahead with World Book Day one way or another so the students don’t miss out. This will mean running the day that students dress up on another day of the week. A lot of schools end up doing different activities all week long, therefore they will have to put this day aside and plan around it.  

"The great thing is that the World Book Day tokens are usable until 26th March so using those won’t be affected. Librarians are, of course, very adaptive and will do what works best for their students and their community no matter what happens.” 

A spokesperson for World Book Day said: “World Book Day encourages children to develop a love of reading every day of the year. Schools and nurseries are always able to hold their World Book Day events and activities whenever works best for their community. The website provides a huge range of events, resources and materials for teachers and families to support their encouragement of reading for pleasure, all year round. The World Book Day £1/€1.50 tokens can be exchanged for a £1/€1.50 book from 16th February to 26th March. For more information, visit www.worldbookday.com/schoolsandnurseries.”