A comic book featuring a “flan cannon”, thermal underwear and “hairy” jam topped the overall UK book chart last week, in the run-up to World Book Day on 5 March.
Bunny vs Monkey: Total Chaos!, an instalment of Jamie Smart’s bestselling series, is one of 13 £1 World Book Day children’s books available in the UK for this year’s event, 10 of which make up the entirety of the most recent overall Top 10 book chart for the first time. Smart’s book came in at No 1, having sold 36,479 copies in the week to 28 February, according to the Bookseller.
“It’s really amazing to see comics enjoying this boom in popularity right now,” said Smart. “They’re such a fun and immersive way to read a story, and can be really inspiring to help [children] start telling their own stories too.”
For many children, “that visual reading is their way in”, said World Book Day executive director Fiona Hickley. “Generally, comic books are funny, and children get the reward of a laugh when they read those books.”
Other books that are proving popular this year are “highly illustrated chapter books”, which are a “really good stepping stone between picture books and chapter books”, added Hickley.
Coming in behind Bunny vs Monkey are Peppa Pig: One Big Family, published under the name of the titular hog, at No 2; Chaos at the Chocolate Factory, written by Sibéal Pounder and illustrated by Emily Jones, at No 3; and Pablo and Splash: The Castle Quest by Sheena Dempsey, at No 4.
The World Book Day charity has selected a total of 16 £1 books this year, with 12 available UK wide, one in Wales only, and three in the Republic of Ireland only. World Book Day is one of the main partners of the government’s national Year of Reading campaign for 2026, launched in response to a sharp decline in reading for pleasure among adults and children in recent years.
“One in three children are saying that they don’t enjoy reading,” said Hickley. World Book Day’s response is “offering children wonderful, enticing, free books”. It’s “a day that’s just about the fun”. Lots of children and parents “find that reading has become a chore, it’s become homework, it’s become something else that they have to do”, she added, whereas reading “should be just another part of your entertainment and mental health toolkit”.
The World Book Day books are intended to be “delicious entry points for reading”, said Hickley. “The key message that we all as adults – particularly adults who consider ourselves readers – need to convey to the young people in our lives is that reading is one of the things we turn to for entertainment.”
“And it can sit alongside other forms of entertainment, but it’s something that can live with you for life. And it’s remarkably cheap, or free, if you use a library to read, for your whole life.” She feels optimistic that “everybody has realised the situation that we’re in and are pulling together to work on it”.
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