I just found out that it’s World Book Night, and that’s made me really happy because:

• a kind lady gave me a new book to read which I have never read and think I will love (The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho);
• on the back of the book it says ‘This book is a gift. It is one of a million which is being given as part of World Book Night 2012 to spread the joy and love of reading. You can enjoy it and pass it on and still keep it with you. All you have to do is read it. Once you have, the story is yours forever’;
• nobody has asked anyone in the family to dress up as a book character;
• nobody has asked me to make or buy a costume;
• nobody has asked me to make my children swap some of their books for someone else’s;
• I will not have to squeeze into a room with 500 other parents and children at the end of the school day while my son persuades me to pay for an overpriced sticker album from the fundraising ‘book’ fair.

So thank you for the lovely book, World Book Night. Once I’ve read it, I will go to www.worldbooknight.org and register its serial number so that I can keep track of how far it travels once I pass it on. But can you please have a word with World Book Day because I think it needs to calm down and could learn a thing or two from you?