Bookseller Waterstones has “massively let down” Dundee children taking part in an annual celebration of reading, according to a teacher.
The retailer was due to deliver hundreds of books to two secondary school libraries so that youngsters could redeem tokens on World Book Day Thursday, March 7.
The partnership of publishers and booksellers was set up 16 years ago to promote books and reading.
To mark the day, all school children are entitled to receive a £1 book token. It can be exchanged for one of eight specially published books including Francesca Simon’s Horrid Henry’s Guide to Perfect Parents and Weird World of Wonders: Funny Inventions by TV’s Tony Robinson.
However, Waterstones has now conceded that “unprecedented demand” means it cannot supply enough stock to two Dundee schools.
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A teacher, who asked not to be identified, said: “Pupils have been massively let down by Waterstones for World Book Day. Our librarian had arranged activities for the week, the major one being that Waterstones were to give us books for the library to hold so that pupils could come to the library and use their token.
“They had also agreed to give a couple of titles that pupils could put their token to and pay the rest on the day to the librarian.
“This had also been arranged for another secondary school by their librarian. Everything was in place with emails exchanged and an agreement reached weeks ago that this was to happen.
“This was fantastic as it meant that our pupils had an opportunity to use their book tokens in school many pupils would not normally set foot in a book store or use their tokens as it would involve having to go into a book shop.
“In short, this would try and help non-readers have an opportunity to have a book that they may be interested in and change perceptions, something extremely important.”
But the retailer contacted the librarians late last week and admitted that they would not meet their commitment to the school children.
The teacher said: “They’re saying they cannot go forward as they simply never have excess stock totally contradicting the emails and numbers of books agreed over the last few weeks.
“This is ridiculously short notice, and now leaves two librarians, two English departments and two schools in a position whereby we cannot provide a service to the pupils that we want to do.”
The Courier contacted Waterstones and a spokesman apologised to pupils.
He said: “Waterstones is a key supporter of World Book Day and we have seen unprecedented demand for the special £1 World Book Day books this year.
“Unfortunately this demand does mean that our Dundee shop is unable to send out bulk consignments of the books, but any child coming in to a Waterstones bookshop on World Book Day should be able to use their voucher with ease on a huge selection of books, including the WBD £1 titles.”