World Book Day costumes: This year’s best outfits, from Captain America to Willy Wonka

Children across the country are pulling out all the stops as they transform into their favourite characters

Willy Wonka (Twitter)

World Book Day provides children across the country with the opportunity to dress up as their favourite characters for a day, taken straight from the pages of their most treasured books.

This year, the annual event takes place on Thursday 7 March.

The aim of World Book Day is to "celebrate stories" and encourage children to "love reading", while raising money for charity by having each child who dresses up in celebration of the occasion bring £1 into school.

Some of this year's costumes have proven incredibly creative, as young book-lovers immerse themselves in the imaginative world of literature.

From the quick-witted Hermione Granger to the mischievous Pippi Longstocking, here are some of this year's best World Book Day costumes:

On World Book Day 2019, authors are being urged to include more characters with disabilities in their stories.

Oscar-winner Rachel Shenton and Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo have called for children's books to contain more diversity, explaining that it's important for children to "see themselves in the programmes and movies they watch and in the books they read".

From Artemis Fowl to Peter Rabbit, take a look at a roundup of the best children's books for World Book Day here.