National Bookstart Day 2008
Friday 10 October is National Bookstart Day 2008 and the theme is Pirates Ahoy!
We've produced promotional materials including posters, bookmarks and stickers using the wonderful artwork of Debbie Harter, illustrator of the book Port Side Pirates.
We hope that you will join us in celebrating the continued success of the world’s first national books-for-babies scheme in your bookshop.
Point-of-sale materials
In August we will be sending out point-of-sale materials to all independent booksellers and chains that accept the £1 National Book Token enclosed in Bookstart+ and Treasure Chest packs.
Each point-of-sale pack contains one A2 poster, two A3 event posters, three A4 posters, 100 bookmarks, 200 stickers and two Rhymetime sheets.
If you would like to receive a point-of-sale pack, please email us at nationalbookstartday@booktrust.org.uk.
There are also further resources available here to download, along with suggested activities and fun ideas to make this year's National Bookstart Day a wonderful celebration.
Rhymesheets
| We've created special Rhymetime sheets in English and Welsh, using Debbie's illustration. Rhymetime sheets are size A4. You can download these below: | ||||
|
| ||||
Posters | |||||
 | Our colourful posters are ideal for promoting your National Bookstart Day events and are available to download below:
A4 standard posters | ||||
|
| ||||
| Events posters Our events posters are available as PDFs and Word docs (over-typable) | |||||
|
| ||||
Activities
There are lots of fun activities, including activity and colouring-in sheets to download and other great ideas to mark the day. Scroll down and take a look...
Colouring-in sheets
| Sheet 1 | Sheet 2 | Sheet 3 | ||
 |
|  | ||
| Click to download... | Click to download... | Click to download... |
 | Pirate's hats Some black paper, a round plate and a pair of scissors and you're away! | ||||||
| |||||||
 | Ship's rats | ||||||
Further suggestions
Here are some other suggested ideas, activities and rhymes for your themed National Bookstart Day event:
- Face-painting
Children can be transformed into a blue bear or a colourful ship's parrot with these easy-to-follow steps.
Download: Face-painting techniques
- Further pirate rhymes
More suggested rhymes to go with the National Bookstart Day rhymesheets
Download: Pirate rhymes
- Pirate map
X marks the spot - invite children to locate the missing gold, or bear, or whatever takes your fancy, with a special Treasure Hunt.
Thanks to Bookstart in Cornwall for drawing up this fantastic map:
Download: Pirate map
Suggested books
 | Here's a list of suggested books to accompany your National Bookstart Day rhymetime or storytime event. Let us know your suggestions for more books and rhymes on the Discussion Board. |
We hope that you will continue to lend your invaluable support to our shared aim of encouraging every child to develop a lifelong love of books and reading. Please join us in celebrating National Bookstart Day on Friday 10 October 2008.