Seriously ill children from across the UK cared for at Great Ormond Street Hospital experienced the magic of World Book Day yesterday (7 March) through an event organised by Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity) for patients, families and staff at the hospital.
The charity World Book Day’s mission is to encourage a lifelong habit of reading for pleasure and this year, World Book Day supported GOSH Charity to provide children with access to reading in a unique way.
As part of a pilot programme, Yoto – the children’s audio platform and official audio partner for World Book Day, and new corporate partner of GOSH Charity – donated Yoto Players (3rd Generation) to GOSH’s expert Play Team to help entertain children through stories. This is a part of a commitment by Yoto to raise £100k for GOSH Charity across a multi-year partnership.
On World Book Day this year, children at GOSH also experienced the magic of reading at a pop-up bookshop which allowed them to exchange their £1 World Book Day tokens for a free book of their choice. A further selection of stories is also currently available for free via the Yoto App and on World Book Day’s website.
World Book Day authors Mark and Roxanne Hoyle aka LadBaby, Tolá Okogwu, Jennifer Killick and illustrator, Paula Bowles as well as World Book Day ambassador MC Grammar surprised patients and families at GOSH during the event, which featured a schedule of activities.
The host of the popular Yoto Daily podcast, Jake Harris recorded a live World Book Day themed podcast episode, to be released the following week, while Elmer the Elephant and Greg the Sausage Roll also popped by.
Ben Drury, ceo and co-founder of Yoto, commented: “Audiobooks are a wonderful way to bring the joy of storytelling to a wider audience, especially pre-readers, reluctant readers or those who otherwise might struggle to access reading. A handful of our very first Yoto Players were sent to Great Ormond Street Hospital when we first started out, so we are incredibly pleased that we can continue to donate Yoto Players for the Play Team to support the children cared for at GOSH.
“We hope that they continue to provide some fun, education and escapism to the children and families at the hospital to enjoy for many years to come.”
Cassie Chadderton, ceo at World Book Day, added: “We are thrilled to have bought the magic of reading for pleasure to Great Ormond Street Hospital this World Book Day. We hope the visits from our £1 authors and some legendary characters, bought some joyful reading moments for the children and their families.”
Sallyanne Pitt, head of play at Great Ormond Street Hospital, concluded: “We are thrilled that GOSH Charity hosted our first ever World Book Day themed event in the hospital for patients, and our dedicated Play Team enjoyed including as many patients as we could in this uplifting and celebratory day.
“We are very grateful to Yoto for its donation of Yoto Players through the new partnership with GOSH Charity. Our ambition as a Play Team is to bring joy and distraction to children through the toughest of times and using the power of storytelling to inspire our patients’ imaginations is a hugely impactful way of doing this.”
Want to read more news like this? Simply sign up to our daily digest by clicking here. You can also follow @LicensingSource on Twitter and @licensing_source on Instagram.
