World Book Day is putting more books than ever into its campaign to provide every child and young person in the country with a book of their own. Catering for all age groups, from toddler to teen, the expanded list of 13 new £1 titles announced today for World Book Day 2019 was created to appeal to the widest possible range of children and young people, tastes and abilities, and features characters from all over the world.  The list brings together exclusive new stories by much-loved authors Malorie Blackman, Patrice Lawrence, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Waterstones Children’s Laureate Lauren Child, world-renowned characters Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and LEGO® Minifigures, and a whole range of new tales for everyone to explore. 

World Book Day is an extraordinary collaboration between the UK and Ireland’s bookselling and publishing industries. Generously supported by sponsor National Book Tokens, it returns after one of its biggest years to date with a range of new initiatives that will help to get more books directly into the hands of more children and young people, especially those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them, including: • A ‘Share a Story Live’ events programme that targets National Literacy Trust hubs to bring authors, illustrators and the reading for pleasure message into places where it can have most impact • Distribution to all HM prisons in England and Wales for the first time, giving away 20,000 free £1 books • Exciting new multi-platform content curated by and created for young people with the support of creative studio Blackcurrent • A mammoth 10 million stickers distributed via nurseries, free schools and primary schools in the UK and Ireland • Award-winning Rob Biddulph announced as World Book Day’s official illustrator for two years, to create stunning artwork with extra POS material for bookshops

The charity behind the world’s biggest annual celebration of children’s books and reading for pleasure has partnered with the media voice of the industry, The Bookseller, for the first time. 

The World Book Day 2019 campaign and 13 titles were unveiled at a Facebook Live event at The Bookseller’s HQ in central London. A special animated video was also revealed and can be viewed on the World Book Day website: www.worldbookday.com​

2019 Titles

• The Hundred and One Dalmatians: Cruella and Cadpig by Peter Bently, illustrated by Steven Lenton (Egmont)
• Ten Little Bookworms by Mike Brownlow, illustrated by Simon Rickerty (Orchard)
• LEGO® Minifigure Mayhem by Helen Murray, Beth Davies & Paula Regan (DK)
• Claude: Best In Show by Alex T. Smith (Hodder)
• Hubert Horatio: A Very Fishy Tale by Lauren Child (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
• Bad Mermaids Meet The Witches by Sibéal Pounder, with illustrators Jason Cockcroft and Laura Ellen Anderson (Bloomsbury) 
• Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo by Rick Riordan (Puffin)
• The Great Rocket Robbery by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, illustrated by Steven Lenton (Macmillan)
• Diary of Greg Heffley’s Best Friend by Jeff Kinney (Puffin)
• Everdark by Abi Elphinstone (Simon & Schuster)
• Snap by Patrice Lawrence (Hodder)
• Nought Forever by Malorie Blackman (Penguin)
• Sam Hannigan’s Rock Star Granny by Alan Nolan (The O’Brien Press)

In 2018, for the second year running, over 1.08 book tokens were redeemed, with booksellers placing over 1 million £1 books into the hands of children and young people – despite the ‘Beast from the East’, which saw temperatures plummet to -15 in some areas of the country. World Book Day’s live event – ‘The Biggest Book Show on Earth’ – reached record numbers, with 700,000 signing up to the online event, while a further 4,500 braved the snow to join 37 authors and illustrators in person throughout the week. Through generous donations by UK publishers, 6,000 £1 books were made available in prisons in London, the North East and North West, for prisoners to share with visiting families. Adding high-profile political engagement to ongoing support from bookshops and high street chains and supermarkets, World Book Day reached Prime Minister’s Questions, 10 Downing Street and the Scottish Parliament, and was the top Twitter trend in the UK and the US throughout the day. Research by The National Literacy Trust (NLT)1 has indicated that 60% of children in the UK are inspired to read more by World Book Day and in 2016 a quarter (25.2%) of 8-18 year-olds said that the book they bought with their World Book Day token had been the first book they’d had of their own, rising to a third for those children on free school meals.

For 2019, the charity will build on its established work with schools, libraries, prisons and the National Literacy Trust, and reach deep into the workplace, corporate and public sector life to galvanise an ever-wider constituency around the benefits of reading at an early age, and the importance of sharing stories. The National Literacy Trust’s 2017 survey2 found that nearly half (47.5%) of Key Stage 2 children don’t read with anyone at home, while children’s book publisher Egmont’s 2017 Print Matters More study3 revealed that parents reading to children is a major influence in children’s independent reading. 

In response to the compelling evidence of the benefits of shared reading to a child’s future, World Book Day’s hugely successful three-year ‘Share a Story’ campaign, now in its second year, is once again taking centre stage as the overarching theme of World Book Day 2019. While continuing to offer children and young people all of the activities that are core to the annual event, World Book Day 2019 will include a call to action to parents and carers to Share a Story with children in their care by reading together for 10 minutes on World Book Day and every day. 

Nic Bottomley, President of the Booksellers Association, said: “World Book Day has unveiled an incredible list of titles for 2019. There really is something in this for everyone. I know that booksellers up and down the country will be getting excited to hand these books to children and young people in exchange for their book tokens. The UK’s book trade is fully behind this important celebration of children’s books and reading for pleasure. I can’t wait for World Book Day 2019."