Ian Falkingham, books expert at Oxfam, said: “World Book Day is all about celebrating the power of stories and I absolutely believe the books you read as a child stay with you for life.
“There’s something quite timeless about the fact that some of our most popular ‘pre-loved’ children’s books are classics like The Wind in the Willows. It underlines that a great story doesn’t end with its first reader. It’s passed on, treasured again, and the money raised through the generosity of Oxfam’s donors and the hard work of our volunteers goes to helping communities around the world in the struggle for equality and to overcome poverty. That's a pretty good story in itself.”
Over the past year, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire topped the UK for second-hand children’s book purchases across Oxfam’s 500 high street shops.
So far in 2026, Oxfam – which has the biggest network of second-hand bookshops in the UK and Europe – has sold more than a million pre-loved books, raising around £3 million to support its worldwide work fighting poverty. In 2025, more than seven million books were sold through Oxfam's specialist high-street shops and website. The charity has seen a 10% increase in second-hand book sales since 2023, reflecting growing interest in affordable and sustainable reading choices, and a continued connection with physical books in spite of digital distractions and the availability of e-readers.
While classics dominate the top sellers in children’s books, Oxfam’s wider data reveals broader regional reading trends and favourites, with Surrey and Hampshire recording the highest levels of rare and collectable titles purchased in the last year, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire showing the strongest appetite for crime and sci-fi, and East Anglia recording the highest proportion of fiction sales overall.
Oxfam urges book-lovers across the UK to shop pre-loved titles and to donate books they’ve finished, giving their favourite childhood stories the chance to inspire someone new this World Book Day. To find your nearest Oxfam bookshop or donate books, visit www.oxfam.org.uk/shops/.
