CHILDREN around the region are dressing up as their favourite characters to celebrate World Book Day.

The annual celebration of reading and writing sees children of all ages going to school dressed up as their favourite characters.

Meanwhile, Margaret Wise Brown's classic children's book Goodnight Moon has been named as The UK's Favourite Bedtime Book.

Research conducted by bed retailer Happy Beds as part of its campaign to celebrate World Book Day found that the 1947 Two Hoots picture book, which is illustrated by Clement Hurd and features a rabbit saying "goodnight" to everything around it, was the most popular book to read at bedtime.

Happy Beds collated more than 26 online lists of 'Best Bedtime Books' from national newspapers, book review sites and literary bloggers and compiled a list with 399 different titles. Margaret Wise Brown's novel came top of the list, beating the Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's The Gruffalo.


1. Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
2. Where the Wild Things are - Maurice Sendak
3. The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson
4. The Going to Bed Book- Sandra Boynton
5. Guess How Much I Love You - Sam McBratney
6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
7. Time for Bed - Mem Fox
8. Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone - J.K Rowling
9. Bear Snores On - Jane Chapman
10. Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site - Sherri Duskey Rinker

Other notable entries in the top 10 were Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar, Sam McBratney and Anit Jeram's Guess How Much I Love You and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling.

Surprisingly, only two of the top ten were published in the 21st century proving that a true bedtime favourite can take decades to tuck itself into the national psyche.