Today is World Book Day, aka The Day When School Teachers Go to Work in Fancy Dress! We had a text message yesterday from our daughter asking if her father had a waistcoat and possibly a hat she could borrow. It transpired that she was putting together a Fagin outfit. Her primary school class have been working on Oliver Twist and it seemed appropriate that she, as their teacher, should go to work dressed as Fagin. We didn’t have a waistcoat to offer but I did find a suitable hat and a muffler, oh, and an old pair of woolly gloves whose finger-ends she could cut off, creating suitable fingerless gloves. A Fagin costume was coming into being!
Her own children’s school does not allow the children to dress up as characters from their favourite story book, which may be quite a relief to some parents, feeling harassed about finding a suitable costume. Instead the children are asked to bring a dressing gown and slippers, which they will don at some point in the day to read stories. It’s all to do with feeling comfortable, snuggled in your dressing gown and slippers with a good book. Personally I don’t need to be wrapped up cosily to enjoy reading; I can feel quite comfortable reading my book anywhere and dressed any old way. If I were still commuting to work Unwound be like those people you see standing in the tube train, balancing a book in one hand while trying to stay upright.
The idea of any kind of book day began in 1922 when a certain Vicente Clavel, director of the Cervantes publishing house in Barcelona wanted to honour Miguel de Cervantes, writer of Don Quijote, and incidentally to boost sales of books. He chose October 7th, the writer’s birthday, in 1926 to launch his project. Now, April 23rd just happens to be the Saint George’s Day and Saint George (Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of Catalonia. Nice coincidence! So on April 2rd the Catalans traditionally give each other a book and a red rose.
Here we have World Book Day today, coinciding with the publication of special editions of selected books for children, aimed at encouraging a love of reading. There is another annual celebration on 23 April: World Book Night, an event organized by independent charity The Reading Agency. Presumably that’s for the grownups.
This year is also the UK’s National Year of Reading, aimed at encouraging all of us, not just children, to read for pleasure. It has been recognised that in general we don’t read enough. Reading for pleasure is a disappearing activity, its demise usually blamed on the smartphone. Research has shown that even the presence of a phone in the room reduces people’s ability to concentrate and to lose themselves in a book! Oddly though, smartphones have grown bigger, after decades of mobile phones growing smaller and smaller, and they have grown bigger because people use them to watch films and YouTube videos, and occasionally as a kindle! Such is modern life! So they want us to read more.
And maybe we need to escape more into a good book, given the continuing parlous state of the world. War continues. There are debates about the likelihood of “accidental” bombings of schools given the accuracy of modern drone warfare. And people trying to flee the Middle East are having some difficulty doing so with rescue flights cancelled. All in all, a mess!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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