CHILDREN across the York and North and East Yorkshire joined in the celebrations for World Book Day with a string of events.

This year marked the 17th World Book Day and nurseries, toddler groups, children’s centres and schools across York got involved, with a variety of activities such as guest storytellers and book-themed dressing-up.

Among the events to be held, children at Bootham Junior School held a fancy dress parade of characters from their favourite books - one of a series of literary events at the school which has also included a visit from Bootham School old scholar Kjartan Poskitt, of Murderous Maths fame.

At Linton-on-Ouse Primary School, children have started a readathon to raise money for children’s charities.

Over at Huntington School, students were allowed to dress in non-uniform with staff and sixth formers dressing in book-related fancy dress. An event staged by the English department showed students 20 minutes of a film and then allowed them to take the book to read.

And at Scarcroft Green Nursery, the leader of the council, Coun James Alexander, read The Hungry Caterpillar to children.

Meanwhile, on the First York number six bus route from Tang Hall to Clifton, library books were available for children to read and a comfy reading area was set up in the council’s West Offices.