Winner of the World Book Day Award has been revealed as an East Yorkshire school, after it faced three years of “struggling” to expand its books offering from "one meagre bookshelf" into a library. The announcement comes as a raft of events kick off to celebrate WBD’s 20th anniversary (2nd March 2017).
Cherry Burton Primary School in East Yorkshire won £5,000 of books for its ‘Old Curiosity Shop’ which saw the Church of England school’s summer playhouse transformed into the shop featured in the classic novel by Charles Dickens.
A World Book Day spokesperson said the "massive influx" of the prize would help the school expand the library, after three difficult years of fundraising. He said: “Designed to convey the 'individual experience' of reading, the shop was filled with displays and crafts made by the children, sparked by their favourite books, which ranged from Owl Babies (Walker) to The Snail and the Whale (Macmillan) and The BFG (Puffin). The massive influx of £5,000 worth of new children’s books provides fresh hope to a school that has spent the last three years struggling to fundraise to expand their collection of books from just one bookshelf into a fully-fledged library.”
Sarah Shepherdson, literacy coordinator at Cherry Burton, said: “We’re honoured and thrilled to have been awarded first prize for our entry to the World Book Day Award. The children all worked incredibly hard and loved exploring and interpreting their favourite books for the project. The addition of £5,000 worth of books to our school library is a dream come true. Three years ago, our library consisted of one meagre bookshelf, and while we have come a long way since then, there is no doubt that this prize will be life-changing for our pupils.”
