World Book Day 2025
News
World Book Day 2025: The books that made us
Thursday, 6 March, 2025Books are a fundamental part of our education. From flicking through picture books as kids to delving into our first novel, books have a way of shaping our lives and imaginations.
Reading at a young age is fundamental to development but the practice of picking up a book and sitting down to read can be challenging in this increasingly digital age. Research shows that only 1 in 3 children say they enjoy reading and that’s exactly where the power of World Book Day comes in.
Encouraging children to grab a book and dress up as their favourite fictional characters, World Book Day is a reminder of just how fun reading can be, and that sentiment is echoed throughout Bath Spa University.
This year, to mark World Book Day, we asked staff, students and alumni to talk about the books that inspired them as children, all reflecting on the vitality of reading in their personal and professional development.
Georgina Andrews, Bath Spa University Vice-Chancellor:
“I was a real bookworm as a kid. One of my favourite books was the Hobbit, probably partly because I've always been small! I loved escaping to a magical world of wizards, dragons, dwarves and elves, where even little people could have big adventures and make a real difference.”
Clare Harlow, Bath Spa University MA Writing for Young People Graduate and 2025 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Shortlister:
“My absolute favourite when I was ten years old was The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis. It’s the first book in the Deptford Mice series, about a group of courageous mice who end up battling an ancient evil in the London sewers. The first book scared me silly, but it also had a blend of twisty mystery and endearing characters that hooked me from the moment Albert Brown decided to explore beyond the grille in the opening chapter. By the time I’d finished that first book I was hooked on the scary stuff too. I begged my mum to take me to the library so we could get the second one, and I never looked back. It set me up as lifelong reader of all things creepy.”
Andy Wasley, MA Travel and Nature Writing Graduate:
“I was a bookish and science-obsessed boy, and fell in love with a series of books by the physicist Russell Stannard – the Uncle Albert books – that aimed to give kids a grasp of relativity and quantum mechanics. His three stories, The Time and Space of Uncle Albert, Black Holes and Uncle Albert and Uncle Albert and the Quantum Quest, are based on Albert Einstein’s famous thought experiments, which helped him to develop his theories. Uncle Albert has the ability to send Gedanken on adventures in his thoughts, where she explores concepts ranging from time dilation to atomic structure – all in brilliant, lively prose. As a boy, I loved following Gedanken across space and time, as she found herself in peril by a black hole, exploring gravity with an army of beetles and trying to understand quantum mechanics with an array of characters you could have met in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. Stannard’s books gave me a love of science and writing that hasn’t left me; I think they’re true classics of science communication and child literature.”
Alexia Casale, Reader in Writing for Young People and Course Leader for MA Writing for Young People:
“Two books changed my life: LP Hartley's ‘The Go-Between' and Anne Tyler's ‘Celestial Navigation’. I was planning to study literature at university, but after reading these during A-Levels, I realised I needed to study Social Sciences or I'd never be able to write the way I aspired to, with a real depth of psychological and sociological insight. I'm really grateful for my unusual path into becoming an author and Reader in the creative writing space as the multidisciplinary aspects of my background shape my approach and help me offer something original.”
Jonathan Bryan, Author, Motivational speaker, Founder of Teach Us Too, and BA Creative Writing student:
“The Chronicles of Narnia were the first books of any length read to me, and I loved immersing myself in the stories and the world they create. As I got older, I also appreciated the Christian truths within the narrative.”
Ian Gadd, Professor in English Literature:
“My earliest memory of a book is Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in which the caterpillar eats their way through lots of different kinds of food, at times taking literal chunks out of the book itself, before transforming into a colourful butterfly. I have a very vivid recollection of the book's physicality — which may well explain my subsequent academic interest in how books are made and read. I was also much more fascinated in the caterpillar's uncontrollable voracity than its eventual metamorphosis, which came to reflect my own attitude to reading as a child: rapidly munching my way through all sorts of books, including ones that were probably much too grown up for me!”
Find out more about the work that World Book Day does on their website and check our course pages to discover how BSU can be part of your next chapter.