Memories of World Book Day

A gentle reflection on the magic of World Book Day and the special memories that stories create in our lives. In this episode, I share a personal story about making costumes, reading together, and inventing imaginative tales with my daughter when she was little. It’s a celebration of how stories connect generations, spark creativity, and stay with us long after childhood. A warm reminder to take time to read, imagine, and create story memories with the people we love. 📚✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to my podcast. Today I wanted to share a few thoughts about World Book Day. Something that has always been very close to my heart. When my daughter was little, World Book Day was one of the most exciting days of the year. In our house weeks before it arrived, she would already be thinking about what character she wanted to be, what she wanted to dress up. And for a while her favourite idea was to be a princess. So we would sit together at the kitchen table and we would plan what she could wear. We would try and make something together. We would um talk about different stories, we would change a few stories, and we would try and come up with the perfect costume, the hair, the hairband, the clips, the shoes. And it was just so amazing and so joyful to work together, laugh a lot, um, and just basically making our imagination go wild and think of various things that we could. This magic came from stories, stories that we had heard, stories that we made together. My daughter, she loves reading. She would sit with a book and then come and read the story to me and to my husband and to our family, and she would read the parts of the story out loud with great enthusiasm and this dramatic voice. And what's so lovely is I always told her that I also used to do that when I was little. I used to love reading, I used to love drama, I used to love to be a different character. And what I remember so fondly is that we made these stories together, and the fun we had, the joy we had together, we've ended up making some beautiful memories that we talk about. So she would start with the simplest idea: uh perhaps a princess who lived in the clouds, and there was like a secret door in the forest, and then we would take turns and add to the story, and then we would add in how um you know there were values and there was all this obstacles and how she overcome them, and it was just it would just be so much fun, and um, we would uh create different ideas and always have something new to talk about, and then our imagination was just endless. Looking back now, I realize those moments were doing something much bigger than we knew at that time. They were helping us discover the joy of storytelling, the magic of beautiful stories. Today I can see that Joy has stayed with her. She has grown into an amazing creative writer, someone who truly loves shaping ideas into stories. These days, obviously, she's grown up, she doesn't need to dress up for World Book Day anymore, but she does come home and tell me about the other children in primary who dress up in these amazing costumes and how they're really enjoying themselves. And it's lovely to hear about that. World Book Day is so exciting and such a beautiful time for children to come together with their parents, with their loved ones, talk about stories, talk about magic, talk about values, talk about good over evil, talk about various different things. Also, when we read a story with someone we love, we're not just reading words on a page, but we're sharing an experience, we're entering into a world together, and most importantly, we're making memories. I also remember the stories that I heard from my parents, the stories that I heard from my loved ones, and they have created beautiful memories in my mind. These always stay with us. I remember the way they told me the stories, the voices, the feeling, and also when we went to different cities around India and they told me lovely stories and what happened and the history, and I still remember those moments and they will stay with me always. Stories travel through families, they're carried forward from parents to children, from one generation to the next. And sometimes years later, we realize those quiet moments of reading together were actually some of the most meaningful moments of all. So today, thinking about World Book Day, I'm feeling so grateful, grateful for the memories of sitting together with books, grateful for the imagination that stories invite into our lives, and grateful for those small, simple moments of connection, of reading together, laughing together, creating stories together. These memories are so precious, and they stay in our hearts far longer than we can expect. So wherever you are today, I hope you get a little bit of time and space to enjoy a beautiful story. Maybe that means reading with your child, sharing a favorite book, or even just remembering a story that meant something special to you. And if you can perhaps take a moment to create a story together with someone you love, I hope that you have an amazing time doing that. Because sometimes the stories we create together become the ones that we carry with us forever. Thank you so much for listening in and I hope you have a wonderful day. Take care.