Celebrate World Book Day's 10th Birthday With Show Me

World Book Day is having its 10th anniversary this week and we wanted to say a big 'Happy Birthday' to this fantastic event.

World Book Day is all about celebrating books and reading.

Most schools in the UK will be giving special book tokens to pupils, which you can take to a bookshop to get a free book from a selection of fun and interesting titles.

This got us thinking about how much fun reading is and where you can find out more about books.

It's great to read the latest adventure story but books have been written for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Before the printing press was invented in the late 15th century, more than 500 years ago, most books had to be written out by hand.

Lots of them were very detailed and beautiful, like the Macclesfield Psalter. There are lot of good pictures of it on this website.

© Fitzwilliam Museum

Another of our favourite books is Alice in Wonderland. You can have a look at the original manuscript on the great Turning the Pages website, which was made by the British Library.

© British Library

There are lots of other famous books on this site, and you can turn the pages and even magnify bits of them to get a closer look.

Roald Dahl is one of the best-loved children's authors. He wrote famous books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach.

Did you know that on the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre's website you can explore his writing hut AND find out lots of interesting facts about him?

Seven Stories in Newcastle is another place dedicated to books. Here's a picture of it.

If you don't live near it and can't visit don't worry - their website has a fun section where you can write your own story, add some colourful pictures and send it to a friend.

© Seven Stories

What about poetry? A good place to find out all about this fun type of reading is on the Children's Poetry Archive.

We'd love to read your poems, stories and all sorts of writing, so why not drop us a line? It would be great to hear what your favourite books are too.

Enjoy World Book Day on Thursday March 1 2007!