It's the day many parents dread as they scrabble together costumes for their kids to wear to school for World Book Day.
Celebrating reading – one of life’s greatest pleasures – is hugely important, but did you know many classic tomes have dark origins?
Here, Kim Carr looks at the tales behind eight familiar reads…
HARRY POTTER: Author J.K Rowling’s mum died when she was 25 and her relationship with her dad was broken when she started penning the series, featuring an orphan boy wizard and with every plot motivated by death.
Living in poverty, with depression and contemplating suicide, she imagined her feelings as the evil soul-sucking Dementor characters.
THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK: There couldn’t be a more chilling a children’s tale right now than this one by Dr Seuss – a Cold War-based story about opposing sides who disagreed on how to eat buttered bread.
It’s aim was to highlight the dangers of nuclear weapons, and the risk to mankind if peace can’t be achieved.
JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH: Every Roald Dahl book had elements which reflected his own life. In James And The Giant Peach the main character is sent to live with a wicked aunt when his parents are eaten by a rhino.
In real life, Roald’s sister and dad died when he was three and his mum packed him off to a boarding school where he was regularly caned by a nasty headmaster.
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THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS: The spoiled son of writer Kenneth Grahame gave him the impetus to create the woodland adventures tale as a method of getting him to sleep, with headstrong Alistair inspiring Mr Toad. But Alastair took his own life five days before his 20th birthday in 1920.
PETER PAN: J.M Barrie created the boy who never grew up because as a kid he pretended to be his dead brother David, who drowned in an ice-skating accident.
He was trying to help his mum get over the loss of the favourite of her 10 kids.
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WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE : A tough childhood led to Maurice Sendak’s book about a boy sent to bed without dinner.
His mum was shipped from Poland to America at 16 for having underage sex, and Maurice was forced to deal with death at an early age when his extended family was wiped out in the Holocaust.
CHARLOTTE’S WEB: Moving to New York, author E.B White decided to take an egg sac of baby spiders he discovered in his barn when he deduced the mother wasn’t coming back for them.
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This led to an infestation in his apartment and such an eight-legged obsession he wrote his wife a poem portraying himself as a spider.
WINNIE THE POOH: Canadian soldier Harry Coleburn bought a bear for $20, named it Winnie and sailed to England.
When called up for WW2 he donated her to London Zoo where a visitor called Christopher Robin took a shine to the creature. The bear in captivity became the subject of the child’s father A.A Milne’s writing.
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