Reading into that good night

New York —
 
Call me an old curmudgeon, but it seems to me that the only way the description World Book Day would make any sense would be if, in some way, the world was brought together by a book — preferably on the same day.
 
But for that to happen, J.K. Rowling would have to produce an unexpected eighth volume in the Harry Potter series — Harry Potter and the Tyranny of Expectation, perhaps — when in fact, from what one hears, she plans to enter the murky world of Ian Rankin and Edinburgh noir.
 
So we shouldn’t get our hopes up. Even if we could wave a magic wand (by Olivanders of Diagon Alley, naturally) and conjure up an octavian tale from She Who Can No Longer be Named in the boardroom of Bloomsbury, the result would have nothing to do with World Book Day.
 
For a start, the ‘celebration’ of children’s literature that takes place today under the rubric World Book Day is confined to the UK and Ireland.