READING AND WRITING IDEAS

There are loads of fun reading and writing activities which would make pleasing fillers for your World Book Night party.

Why not try some of these…

JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVERSpread a load of books across the library floor. If you can

get hold of them, you could use the World Book Night books.

1 Give everyone just 30 seconds to pick a book that appeals to them just from the cover.

2 Look at the blurbs and see if they are still appealing.

3 Read the opening line and complete the verdict.

At each stage, share your findings with the group.

• Judge a book by its cover

• Match book covers and extracts

• Play Balderdash or the Dictionary Game

• Play Ex Libris

• Make magnetic poetry or cut up poems

• Make a Poetree

• Write text or twitter plot summaries for famous books

• Read extracts from World Book Night books

• Have a competition to find the best opening to a book

• Have a World Book Night quiz

MATCH BOOK COVERS AND EXTRACTS

Photocopy some opening paragraphs from novels and some book covers and see who can match the writing with the covers.

BALDERDASH OR THE DICTIONARY GAMEPick an obscure word from the dictionary and have

everyone create their own definition of the word.

One person collects in the definitions and then reads out the whole pile, being careful to surreptitiously include the real definition.

Then, everyone votes on which is the real one.

There are points of getting the right answer and points for fooling your friends.

EX LIBRISLike the Dictionary Game but with fiction.

Pick a book off the library shelves and read out the blurb on the back.

Everyone writes an imaginary opening line or paragraph to the book.

The person in charge reads out all the openings, including the real one.

As before, points for picking the right one and points for fooling your friends.

MAKE MAGNETIC POETRYIf you don’t have a magnetic surface or can’t get hold of

magnetic words, you can easily make your own by photocopying a range of poems and cutting them up into words.

Leave the words on a table and let people make their own poems. You could cut and stick them into poems or simply take photos and recycle the words.

For a different slant on the same theme, cut poems up into lines and see who can put them back together.

WRITE TEXT AND TWITTER PLOT SUMMARIES OF BOOKS

You could do this as a competition or just as a fun exercise whilst nibbling on snacks. Write some, read them out and see if you can guess which books are being described:

“Reader I married him, shortly after nearly marrying a vicar and leaving his ex-wife to burn down his house and top herself.”

MAKE A POETREE (OR A NOVELTREE OR AN AUTHORITREE!)

A Poetree is a representation of a tree hung with leaf-shaped poems.

You could stick the shape of a tree on the library wall or use a fake Chrismas tree or similar.

Print out some famous poems for people to hang and leave some blank leaves for people to write their own poems on.

To change the focus to novels, why not make a ‘noveltree’ of favourite books and an ‘authoritree’ of authors. And if you’re really clever you could theme them on different branches to help other young people to chose what to read next.

READ FROM THE WORLD BOOK NIGHT BOOKSRevive the lost art of listening to stories by allocating the

WBN books to different participants and having each participant read out the opening to the novel.

For added tension, why not award points for best reading and best book with a prize for the winner.

WORLD BOOK NIGHT QUIZHave a quiz master set some questions. To keep the book

focus, have some rounds that are of a literary nature.

• Who wrote Pride and Prejudice?

• What’s the second book in Twilight series called?

• Which book features the character Augustus Waters?

AND THE AWARD FOR BEST OPENING LINE GOES TO:

The opening of a book should grab the reader straight away and there are some really memorable ones available.

Do some research and, on World Book Night, have a competition to see who can come up with the best opening line.

Read them out and have each person score each opening out of ten.

Add up the scores and, hey presto, you’ll have a winner!