Lord of the Rings v Harry Potter – celebrating World Book Day at Spark

An assortment of animals and mythical creatures descended on the Spark office for our World Book Day fancy dress competition. We were graced by the presence of Aslan from the Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Dom), Where’s Wally (Kelly) and Mary Poppins (Ana), as the agency battled out for a £50 book token prize for the best costume. It was a closely fought contest, but Harry Potter fanatics will be sad to hear that Issy’s Professor Trelawney outfit was beaten by Alex A’s portrayal of Frodo from The Lord of the Rings.

As well as our fancy dress competition, we held an impromptu book swap over lunch. A variety of books were up for grabs, including authors as diverse as presenter/podcaster Emily Maitlis and maverick footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It wasn’t just books for adults either – I’d brought in a copy of Fantastic Mr Fox to match my fancy dress for the day, and this Roald Dahl classic was the first to be claimed.

We had a lot of fun, but the day wasn’t just about our own love of reading. The charity behind World Book Day wants to inspire children and young people to read for pleasure, so it was a great occasion to highlight the important work being done by Bookmark Reading. The charity provides one to one support for children struggling with reading in primary school – intervening to ensure as many of them as possible are able to read well by the time they move to secondary school. It was great to hear members of the Spark team sharing their experiences of volunteering with Bookmark, seeing children growing in confidence and moving up to higher reading levels.

We enjoyed celebrating World Book Day, and those of us who kept our costumes on for the journey home were guaranteed a bit of personal space on the tube. If we’ve inspired you to get involved with Bookmark Reading, there’s more information in this blog post.