Happy World Book Day from Elle McNicoll and The Portobello Bookshop!

General3rd March 2022

 On Thursday 3rd March 2022, it's World Book Day! In the spirit of the day, we asked Elle McNicoll to share with us her thoughts on the importance of reading, as well as chat about her brand new middle-grade novel, Like A Charm.

About World Book Day: World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and shared reading. We will be celebrating World Book Day on 3 March 2022. Our mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income. We want to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them. Designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, World Book Day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.

Elle McNicoll is a bestselling and award-winning novelist. Her debut, A Kind of Spark, won the Blue Peter Book Award and the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well as Blackwell’s Book of 2020. She is Carnegie nominated, and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2020, the Branford Boase Award and The Little Rebels Award. Her second novel, Show Us Who You Are, was Blackwell’s Book of the Month and one of The Bookseller’s Best Books of 2021. She is an advocate for better representation of neurodiversity in publishing, and currently lives in East London.

We were delighted to host the Scottish launch event live from our bookshop a few weeks ago, and you can find the event replay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xdCf... (Please note this replay is only available until Monday 7th March 2022.)

Happy World Book Day from Elle McNicoll and The Portobello Bookshop!