At Mostly Books, in Stert Street, there was a book reading, and children had dressed up for the event.

At the Bookstore, in Bury Street, children from different years at Thameside School have been coming every day of the week to exchange their World Book Day vouchers, either: for a book from the special display, or they could use it towards another book.

One book in the shop was created with the help of children from Thameside School, Abingdon.

Children worked with artist Korky Paul to make bug pictures for the start and end leafs of his new book ‘Winnie the Witch – Bug Safari’.

Pictures by 28 children are featured in the book.

Next door, W H Smith had 3 for 2 on lots of children’s books for World Book Day.

Abingdon Library are currently running a reader’s challenge, called Bloomin’ Good Books.

Readers of any age are invited to fill in and return a postcard, about a favourite book, to be entered for the prize draw. You can write an account of the book and why you like it. That might inspire somebody else to read that book and reading will grow.

There are six (soon to be seven) charity shops in the town centre that sell second hand books.

The British Heart Foundation had a window display for World Book Day. On the top shelf is fiction, next down is children’s books, next down is adult fiction, and bottom is media. The display changes as people often ask to buy what is in the window.

Abingdon County Museum also sell books – all of them about Abingdon.

Poundland also sells books, as does Waitrose.

So by my reckoning there are twelve shops that sell books in Abingdon Town Centre this World Book Day.

I have started seeing children’s books, left outside, in Abingdon. They are left in clear bags with a note from the person who donated them. In the last 24 hours I have seen three such books.

The note says You have found a book. You can either read me, leave me, or take me home.

This is the initiative of the Look for a book Oxfordshire Facebook Group. The group began on Saturday 10th August 2019.

Read it Daddy, a fellow Abingdon blogger, has been blogging for over 9 years at https://readitdaddy.blogspot.com/. His speciality is reviewing children’s books, sometimes more than one a day. He will know most of these found books.

On 22nd July Read it Daddy reviewed a book by an Abingdon author – Nicki Thornton.

Nicki used to be the co-owner of Mostly Books. Looking at the window at Mostly Books I see they have lots of children’s books including some about Starting School.
Meanwhile at The Bookstore in Abingdon there are a lot of children’s books in the corner window. They even have one that I recognise – Starting School By Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg.

After the success of her bestselling first book, The Last Chance Hotel, Nicki Thornton was back at Mostly Books, on Saturday, signing copies of her second book –The Bad Luck Lighthouse. The book is a sequel and is part magic and part detective story.

Nicki and Mark Thornton were previously the owners of Mostly Books. The first book came as a result of winning the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2016.

If you look at Nicki’s blog you can see the first book has been translated into several languages including a Russian version.

Ruby Wax will be talking about her book How to be Human at the Amey Theatre at Abingdon School on January 8th thanks to Mostly Books.

Then as part of the ATOM Science Festival, Dr Hannah Fry will be giving a talk on ‘How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine‘ on 22nd March at the Amey Theatre at Abingdon School.

It will interesting to hear their different talks about How to Be Human, in Abingdon.