Pupils dress the part for World Book Day ; READING FOR PLEASURE: Children get into character SCHOOLCHILDREN across Brentwood disguised themselves as Harry Potter characters, pirates, Cinderellas, Mad Hatters and Snow Whites to celebrate World Book Day. The annual event is swooped upon by schools as an excuse for pupils and staff to dress up as their favourite book characters. Nicola Taylor found out more.

WHEN the warning sound was heard, all pupils and staff at WestHorndon Primary School had to DEAR last week: Drop Everything andRead.

Whether they were in lessons, the playground or at lunch everyonehad to ensure they had a book close to hand in case the signal came.Once the all clear was given usual activities were resumed.

Youngsters at the Thorndon Avenue school were also encouraged tokidnap members of staff and hold them to ransom until they read abook, as another fun event held during the school's annual bookweek, held this year to tie in with World Book Day.

Teaching and literacy coordinator Julia Bolton explained: "Thisyear our theme was 'Read around the World'.

Continents "Each of our six classes were turned into continents,with pupils reading books and the internet to find out about thecountries within that continent.

"Throughout the week pupils also made their own books about thecontinent and on Book Day dressed to represent a setting from abook.

"Some children represented the countries in stories such asIndia, Arabia, Africa and China.

"At the end of the week pupils toured each others' classrooms tofind out more about their peers' research."

There was also a book swap where the children exchanged theirbooks with each other and a Big Breakfast Bookshare when parentswere welcomed into school to read to pupils.