Today, Thursday 7th of March, is World Book Day. The event works in partnership with the Scottish Book Trust to deliver lots of exciting free resources to schools up and down the country.

For younger readers there’s also some of World Book Day’s Share A Story Corner’s stories on the Bookbug app. The Bookbug app includes hundreds of songs and rhymes for families to enjoy together. They can also watch the Share A Story Corner videos full of familiar characters.

And, of course, there’s the World Book Day £1/€1.50 Books and Tokens.

Our schools and public libraries play a very important role in the promotion of reading, for all ages. Some of those libraries are facing cut backs and even closure.

The Scottish Book Trust is running a survey to find out just how important your local library is to you. Click on this link to take part: Why Scottish Libraries are Essential – Feedback From Library Users

No matter how good your library or school is, the most important person to encourage children’s reading is in their own home. Research conducted by World Book Day with funding from The Mercers’ Company and Beano Brain has found that fewer children are choosing to read because they feel judged and embarrassed about reading.

When World Book Day asked children when reading is best, autonomy and control were by far the most important factors:

• when they can choose what to read – 47%
• when they can choose when to read – 42%
• when they can choose where to read – 37%

A quarter of children also believe they would enjoy reading more if they had more freedom to read in other ways, such as graphic novels/ audiobooks – 25%.

As someone who grew up reading the back of cereal packets at breakfast, rushed out of school to pick up the weekly Beano, leafed through my dad’s encyclopaedias mesmerised by the information they contained, and then discovered the delights of the public library with a whole section just for kids – it is good not to criticise what children are reading.

Fiona Grahame