A few days ago we shared our plans to make a book nook to celebrate World Book Day. The children had lots of ideas for celebrating World Book Day and we did so much crafting last week! We made our own book marks, decorated World Book Day cupcakes inspired by Varjak Paw (our current book), shared a giveaway to win a copy of the latest Draw With Rob book and planned our own book nooks.

What is a Book Nook?

A Book Nook is basically a small diorama of an alleyway visible between the books on your shelves. Search on Pinterest and you will find some magical small worlds waiting to be discovered. They can be themed around a favourite book or series of book, a character or completely made up. The ones we have seen are very professional but there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t make your own little book nook.

How to make a Book Nook

We did a little planning before we started and gathered some supplies. We decided to use empty cereal boxes as we knew they would fit perfectly on our bookshelves. We had a hard time choosing what to make. We’ve read some amazing books recently and both the children had pretty strong opinions about their favourite authors and characters. My eldest made a book nook inspired by Malamander and Gargantis by Thomas Taylor. These are great books for kids in and around Year 6 and we loved reading them together.

It took a while to decide between creating Herbie Lemon’s Lost and Foundery and the Eerie Book Dispensary, but we eventually decided on the Eerie Book Dispensary. We drew a rough plan, adding in details from descriptions in the book (this is a great way to encourage skills such as scanning text and pulling out key facts!).

Once we had our plan and our supplies we could start. First we cut the short side off our cereal box and carefully opened it out.

We re-used the cardboard piece, covering it in craft sticks to make a strong base for our book nook.

Then we were able to start drawing our book nook design on to the cardboard. The left hand side of the book nook featured the fearsome Mermonkey, sitting on a circus pedestal, with his ancient black typewriter, wearing a top hat.

The central portion of the book nook contained the black marble fireplace with its cheery fire (just what was needed on a cold day in Eerie on Sea). The right hand side featured floor to ceiling shelves which were stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes. In the book it says that the books were colour coded, but we weren’t sure how to show that, instead the children just enjoyed colouring in all the books. Can you spot Erwin the Cat?

We added in a few details, such as the shop sign and a big window for the Mermonkey to sit in and look out of. Then we were able to glue the box back together again and slot in the wooden floor.

A few final details included a button for a hanging lightshade and a table from a cotton reel. We made miniature copies of Malamander and Gargantis and found an old Scrabble tile holder (which we had previously cut) which was perfect for making a miniature book display.

What do you think of our book nook inspired by The Eerie Book Dispensary in Eerie On Sea? It was so much fun to make and kept us busy all week. If I saw it I would certainly pop in for a browse!