Worldbookday

A host of famous faces, including Sir Lenny Henry, Adam Kay and Joe Wicks, are supporting this year's event with new limited-edition books aiming to get ...

“You just feel you are on an adventure, and I feel that, especially now having a young son, it’s the perfect book to get a child into reading. The novelist recalls: “I loved We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury [Walker Books], which I now read with my son. I loved it and still do, although at the time my dad wasn’t very happy when I had the floorboards up in the bedroom to see if we had any Borrowers.” The author, broadcaster and comedian says: “I loved Billy Bunter’s Banknote by Frank Richards [Hawk Books]. “The light would be coming in from the streetlights outside but I’d have a lamp on and would be sat there, in their world. “I think you want to be the main character. “It was so vivid and some of the feelings she went through were so excruciating. “But through my kids I’ve been introduced to The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler [Macmillan Children’s Books]. So I never went through the traditional stage of reading children’s books. I was reading fluently by the time I’d finished the first chapter.” The novelist says: “My favourite was definitely A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett [Vintage Children’s Classics]. I just feel really glad that I made the acquaintance of that elephant.”