For the Love of Books

Harrodians loves World Book Day because it allows them to celebrate twin passions for reading and dressing up

This year Harrodian’s bibliophiles had a fine day on which to celebrate and share their love of books and they made the most of the WBD activities jointly laid on by our librarians and English teachers.  

'Around the Worlds in 80 Books' was the theme for this year's library reading list - a selection of books recommended by Harrodian pupils and staff that are set in another country or fantasy land. To see some of the great suggestions, gathered and compiled by our library team, please click on the link below:

Following this 'around the worlds' theme, our Lower Prep pupils enjoyed getting crafty with their 3D World Book Day creations.  The 8s made shoebox bedrooms for their favourite book characters, our 9s created a character's bag, and our 10s built a setting or scene from a favourite story that takes place in a different country or fantasy land. The children also wrote descriptions for them and included some clues so that their peers could guess which book characters or stories they had chosen. Here are a selection of the winners proudly displaying their creations (left to right below) from Why the Whales Came (Florence 8s), Beast Quest (Alex 9s) and Little House on the Prairie (Mia 10s). For photos of all the winners from each year group please click on the photo gallery link at the bottom of this page. 

Special literary-themed celebrations continued all day, including a return of the 'Lyrical Clinic' laid on by Mr McDowall and Mr Hardern of the English Department, clad in white medical attire in the Senior Foyer. This service offered one-to-one consultations with visiting students who were then 'prescribed' poems 'for the alleviation' of a list of common complaints including 'Isolation, Hope, Inertia, Regret and Whatever life throws at you'.

As usual World Book Day also gave Harrodian teachers an excuse to dress up and pose as their favourite literary figures and they rose exuberantly to the challenge. Learning Support dressed up as characters from Macbeth, the Classics team as Perseus and Medusa from Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Lower Prep teachers as Alice in Wonderland, English and Library staff restyled themselves as characters from Mary Poppins, Business were inspired by Tin Tin, the Spanish department came as Mafalda: Femenino Singular while our scientists posed as doctors from Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt. 

Elsewhere around the school, our 8s to 11s pupils enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book characters and Senior pupils enjoyed taking part in bumper World Book Day quizzes complete with prizes and a D.E. A.R. (drop everything and read!). 

World Book Day at Harrodian is not complete without a community focus. This year all students were asked to bring in books from home that they had already read and to give them to a Library collection in aid of the Children's Book Project - a charity that distributes books to disadvantaged children across London.