DEAR Reader, it’s World Book Day: here’s why you should care

DEAR reader! World Book Day may have passed, but it’s never too late to Drop Everything And Read! Don’t do what we used to in secondary school and hide your phone between the pages. Do-do what we used to do in Primary school, and dress up as the BFG with a cucumber labelled snozzcumber in your backpack. Go to the Book of Kells. Go to Books Upstairs. Go smell the yellow leaves of paperback books. Go read a fairytale aloud in a theatrical voice. Go find your people, the bookmarkers or the dog-ear-lovers, but don’t judge a book by its cover.
Book time for reading good books or bad books because while life may be too short for the latter, “a reader lives a thousand lives...” Is World Book Day for every book? Yes, and every nook and cranny of the library is invited. 

We may spend the day skipping through to find the pictures, we may spend the day peeling our feelings about one one-page poem about an orange, we may spend the day writing our own books for our own friends or our own strangers, or we may spend it with our own favourite classic within our own favourite arms.
But we shall spend it with a book in hand…if even just to feel the breeze of flicked pages on our faces. 

It’s easy to forget the existence of days like this in our chaotic world (last-year-me would attest to this); however, being a reader will never go out of style, and the style of the reader can never be beaten! You may disagree with this take, but congratulations, for that is your right as the reader. Anyway, speaking of reading, here are some splendid Irish writers to check out before the big book day approaches! Though, to note, my handful of recommendations = really just a few grains of sand from the sea of Irish creative talent which we have, so yeah, take that with a grain and search the web for more! 

Nithy Kasa 

“My neighbourhood is mounted like a segment
Of a Lego town, 

Block upon block, 

Slick edges. Heads in Mid-air.”    

- ‘The City Moves’ 

The poet, Nithy Kasa, was born in Kimpese, Democratic Republic of Congo and moved to Galway at the age of thirteen, later joining the Dublin Writers Forum in 2011. She exemplifies a generation of Irish writers engaging with place and identity in new ways. Kasa’s debut poetry collection, “Palm Wine Tapper and The Boy at Jericho”, was published in 2022, and it explores a sense of in-betweenness. Each poem is an interspice, emotionally, geographically or syntactically. Her unique perspective, comparing the culture of the DRC to Ireland, lends to the jive, jazz and blues notes within her poetic voice. A vivid materiality of existence and observed detail bring each of Nithy Kasa’s poems to life. 

Kevin Curran 

“The rain has stopped, and the pavement is bright and slick. And although it’s Friday and sunny, they know this spring buzz won’t last for long.

Hunger drives them. Luckily, this four-hundred-metre slope of Mainstreet, Balbriggan – from SuperValu to the Square – is the meal-deal capital of County Dublin.” 

- ‘Youth’ 

Kevin Curran is a schoolteacher and novelist from Balbriggan, Dublin. His 2013 novel “Beatsploitation” was the first Irish novel to centre around the African experience of living here, while his latest novel, ‘Youth’ (2013), explores the multiculturalism of Curran’s hometown and gathers four teenage voices of Balbriggan in a coming of age story that is, as Curran says, checked for accuracy by the very same youth. “This book simply comes from ten years of being a teacher in Balbirggan…and it could only have been written now.” What I love about the book and what is so special about it is Curran’s embrace of contemporary language, not ignoring language’s evolution and diversity as many writers do, but instead playing with it vividly and vulnerably. As writer, Melatu Uche Okorie put it, “Youth is current. It’s Here and Now! You feel the language of Youth in your very pulse.”

Jessica Traynor

“Lesson one
You have no shared contexts –
Forget sentimentality.
The child recognizes you
As a fox on a winter’s night
Hears the owl shriek above it.”

- ‘If You Can Tame a Wildcat, You Can Raise a Baby” 

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist, creative writing teacher, librettist, outspoken activist and editor for the Banshee Press. Her collections have received numerous awards, and in 2016, she was named one of the ‘Rising Generation of Poets.’ The extract above is taken from her intimate, earthy yet wickedly funny collection, Pit Lullabies (2022), exploring parenthood and the poisons and pitfalls of 21st century living. Meanwhile, her latest collection, ‘New Arcana’, uses Tim Burton films and Tarot cards as a lens through which to view girlhood, bad boyfriends and grief throughout. I can not recommend her poetry enough, it is simply too much of a challenge to summarise it here, and simply, I do not want to, because her poetry sits in the silence of my soul and shall happily reside there, so just DEAR one! I’d suggest!  

So, that’s all for now, happy World Book Day, 2026, from StarFish Magazine.
P.S. Magazines count!

Written by Ben Lynch (ben_Lynch__) 

Edited by Shaunamay Martin Bohan (@f4wnfatale)