Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks selected as the official World Book Day £1 book

The literary and visual triumph that is the Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks author/illustrator partnership began in 2003, when they first collaborated on Princess Mirror-Belle, Julia’s fiction series for older children. Since then, their glittering chart-topping picture book titles such as What The Ladybird Heard and The Singing Mermaid have become firm family favourites.

As the Julia and Lydia partnership continues to go from strength-to-strength, they invite you to go back to where it all began, to Ellen and her very mischievous Princess double. In Princess Mirror-Belle and Snow White Mirror-Belle comes popping out of Ellen’s bathroom mirror to help out with the local pantomime taking the story off script in a hilarious way. What escapades has mischievous Mirror-Belle got up her Princess sleeves this time?

If you can’t wait until World Book Day (Thursday 2nd March 2017) then there are plenty of fantastic Princess Mirror-Belle stories to enjoy, including Christmas with Princess Mirror-Belle. You can always guarantee that wherever Mirror-Belle goes, trouble will follow and Ellen’s Christmas ballet show and her friend’s fancy dress party are no exceptions. The perfect gift for princesses moving on to independent reading.

Macmillan Children’s Books is proud to publish this enchanting Princess Mirror-Belle and Snow White tale from Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks for World Book Day UK 2017. Over the past 19 years, World Book Day UK has delivered 13 million £1 books into the hands of young people across the country. In 2016, the number of £1 books given away was 789,738. The charity’s aim for its 20th anniversary is to increase this number to one million. World Book Day was first designated an international event by UNESCO in 1995 after being observed for over 70 years in Catalonia, where giving books to friends and family had become an annual tradition. It was first marked in the UK two years later in 1997, in response to an increasing concern over poor reading and writing standards.

The 10 official titles are aimed at readers from pre-school to teen:

Peppa Loves World Book Day 

Everyone Loves Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort

Where’s Wally? The Fantastic Journey by Martin Handford 

Princess Mirror-Belle and Snow White by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks

Horrid Henry: Funny Fact Files by Francesca Simon

The Famous Five: Good Old Timmy and Other Stories by Enid Blyton

Untitled book by David Walliams 

Butterfly Beach by Jacqueline Wilson  

Island by David Almond

Dead of Night: A Front Lines Story by Michael Grant 

For more information about World Book Day and Princess Mirror-Belle and Snow White please visit www.worldbookday.com