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This article was published in February 2023.

It’s that date in the calendar when schools across the country come alive with the sheer joy of literature - World Book Day.

When World Book Day arrives each year, it can spark classroom discussion on the characters young people love. Those fictional heroes don’t have to be the best-known names to get pupils talking either.

Ahead of our World Book Day Live Lesson, ���˿��� Teach asked some of the authors who have written the £1 books for this year's event to reveal the characters from children’s literature which have inspired them.

LD Lapinski

Author of StrangeWorlds Travel Agency: Adventure in the Floating Mountains

A character I absolutely adore is Brie, from Kereen Getten’s novel If You Read This.

Brie grew up doing treasure hunts around her island town with her mother, and these precious memories have been extra-special since her mother passed away a couple of years ago. But on Brie’s twelfth birthday, a new treasure hunt begins, as a series of letters takes her on an adventure she never expected.

Whilst there are a lot of themes about grief and loss in this book, at the heart of it is so much love, and that comes from Brie herself. She is a resilient and strong character, but so human it feels as though you’ve known her all your life. The journey Brie goes through, not just on her final treasure hunt but within herself, is so relatable to anyone who’s ever been twelve and about to grow up. I would have loved to have Brie as a friend when I was growing up, she is so determined, feisty and fun – and comes with her own set of loving family and friends that I felt like I knew all of them inside out by the time the story ended.

AM Dassu

Author of Boot It!

Recently, I have been inspired by April from Hannah Gold’s The Last Bear.

She lives with her widowed father who has in recent years become distant and lost himself in his work. When he takes her with him on a six-month-long research post in the Arctic, she is hopeful he will finally find time for her. Sadly, she soon learns on arrival that her father's work schedule will mean she'll see even less of him. When she meets an injured bear caught in plastic drifting in the ocean, she is compelled to help him, and through their encounters she finds the warmth, attention and love she craves from her father. Despite the loneliness and the bitter cold climate, April is brave, resilient and full of hope. She finds purpose and shows us how we can all do the right thing despite the many challenges we might face.

Pippa Goodhart

Author of You Choose Your Adventure

I’ve just read a wonderful book, Wished by Lissa Evans, and one of its child characters inspires me very much.

There are two boys who are main characters in the story too, and interesting ones, but its little sister Roo (really Lucy) who is my hero.

She is brave and stoical and up for adventure, enjoying a touchingly odd partnership with an ancient and stinky old cat, Attlee, who can sometimes talk, when he is sarcastic and demanding. But Roo, and we, learn to love him and care about him.

Roo is a natural carer. She’s constantly, with no fuss at all, looking out for her big brother, anticipating moments that might prove tough for a wheelchair user, and steering things in the right direction for him. She’s such a positive character, a fun one, and a deeply kind one. I’d like to be like Roo!

Tom Percival

Author of Billy’s Bravery

A character that has always resonated heavily with me is Tim from the series of books by Sheila K McCullagh called Tim and the Hidden People.

Tim’s parents have died, and he lives with his Aunt May and a number of lodgers who rent rooms out in their house. Some of the lodgers are nice but some are very unpleasant. Aunt May doesn’t have very much money and Tim often notices that the lodgers get all the best food, leaving little for him.

The books were written in the early 1970s and set in a post-industrial town, which is at times depicted as cold and daunting, but despite Tim’s challenging situation he’s always open-minded and keen to help anyone who might need his assistance, whether they’re adults, children, animals or the mysterious, ghost-like hidden people that he starts to see when he first finds a magical key in his attic.

It was a reading scheme that was popular in the 1970s and ‘80s and I always feel incredibly lucky that the first books I was given to help me learn to read managed to engage me and capture my imagination so much. The illustrations by Pat Cook played a big part in this as they brought the dark, mysterious and — at times — frighteningly real danger in the stories to life and kept me completely hooked.

Dana Alison Levy & Shakirah Bourne

Authors of Being An Ally: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up and Trying Again

Dana Alison Levy: Everyone loves to root for an underdog, at least in a story. But reality — as always — is murkier and more difficult. The challenges that make a good story often make a terribly difficult life, and we don’t always get the stories that deal honestly with the impact of these challenges. One book that does this beautifully is Ellen Oh’s novel for young readers, Finding Junie Kim.

Junie is a Korean-American middle school student in the United States during Trump’s presidency. She deals with subtle and not-so subtle racism, and tries her best to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. We see the toll this takes on Junie’s relationships with her friends and family, and ultimately her mental health. But when an assignment leads her to interview her grandparents and learn about their bravery and compassion as kids in Korea during wartime, she finds courage in her history, and finds a way to be the hero she needs.

While Finding Junie Kim offers all the growth and honesty and hope that books for kids should, it also transcends a typical underdog story. It gives an honest and beautiful look at what it takes to fight through challenges, and why we all deserve to be the heroes in our own stories.

Shakirah Bourne: It is easy to get lost in books with sword-wielding heroes and spellbinding magic, but in The Color of Her Words by Lynne Joseph, authoritarian forces challenge a 12-year-old girl who is armed only with a pencil and notepad, and her journey is just as epic as any fantastical adventure.

In a village in the Dominican Republic, Ana Rosa dreams of being a writer; a dangerous dream in a place where words are feared. She knows it would be safer to keep her words inside, but it is impossible not to write poems and stories about the music of the ocean, dancing at fiestas and on the beach with her Papi, a first crush, or her brother’s search for a future.

Ana Rosa’s family depends on income from her brother’s job to put food on the table, but her life is far from poor; it is rich with love, friendship, community, music and dance. But when her way of life is threatened by an oppressive government eager to seize their homes, Ana Rosa will realise that in a country where silence is self-defence, her words are as powerful as bullets.

It is a short book, great for reluctant readers. Ana Rosa’s journey shows the power of self-belief and importance of the written word in inciting change and preserving memory.

Swapna Haddow

Author of Dave Pigeon: Book Shop Mayhem

I think one of the most inspirational characters in children’s literature is Sami from Boy, Everywhere by AM Dassu.

Sami is a fun-loving kid who lives in beautiful Damascus, Syria. He enjoys doing all the things kids love to do when they are thirteen years old - he hangs out with his best friend, he plays video games, and he thinks about football. But when his family is caught up in a bombing at a shopping mall, his entire life is thrown into turmoil as he begins the harrowing journey to the UK as a refugee to escape danger.

I love this character so much, not just because Sami’s story of survival displays the rawness of love and bravery but because his story is based on real experiences that Syrian refugees have lived. As they travel across to Turkey they are forced into a smuggler's den. Their journey continues from there and only gets more and more treacherous only to be met with hostility and judgement when they arrive in the UK.

Sami’s resilience throughout this story is truly admirable and this book is a thoughtful insight into the lives of refugees arriving on the shores on the UK.

Your class can join in ���˿��� Teach's World Book Day Live Lesson on Thursday, March 2 at 11am. Hosted by Ben Shires and Konnie Huq, watch it live on C���˿��� or catch it after broadcast on ���˿��� iPlayer.