Reveal of 3 new interest badges for World Book Day 2025
A sneak peek at 3 new interest badges coming in July 2025
It’s World Book Day on 6 March 2025 and we’re celebrating by giving you a first look at our new bookish badges for Brownies, Guides and Rangers.
All 3 new badges will join our current interest badge for Rainbows called book lover, so girls get to grow their love for reading through the sections.
Fun fact: every single new interest badge has been tested by thousands of girls! And our youth steering group Amplify helped us shape the design of them too.
What is World Book Day?
World Book Day is a celebration to promote a love of books so that more children feel inspired to read for pleasure. Every year, lots of children dress up as their favourite author, character or book. This could be for fun at home, at school, or with an after-school activity group like Girlguiding.
Looking for easy but inspirational World Book Day costume ideas for girls? Check out this list of ideas which contains over 10 outfit ideas inspired by empowering women and characters.
Recap 5 quick facts about our new interest badges
- When we reviewed the programme, girls told us that interest badges were the part of our programme they enjoy the most. To give them more of what they love, we’re doubling the number of interest badges for every section! That’s 72 new ones in total.
- They’ll be available in July 2025 in time for the new terms starting in August and September 2025.
- Fun fact: over 27,000 volunteers, girls and their parents or carers have had their say in this project so far. Whether it’s your thoughts on our programme, designs you’ve sent us through the topper activity or feedback from our programme testing pool, your voices have been a big part of this project. Thank you! We couldn't have done it without you.
- Interest badges can now be done in units. Girls also told us they enjoy doing badges even more when they do the activities with their friends so we’re making them more flexible for everyone.
- We’re creating a little badge book just for the new interest badges. That means you won’t need to spend any extra money on buying books for the badge activities you already own.
Meet our new bookish interest badges
Book reviewer for Brownies
What makes a book 5 stars? This bookish badge encourages Brownies to review 2 different books and review them in an exciting way! We know from our programme review that arts and crafts are the most popular type of activity for Brownies. So they’ll also be challenged to design new cover art for a book!
Bookworm for Guides
Calling all Guides! Created in collaboration with the Children’s Book Project, this cute bookworm badge will get you making your perfect book nook to relax and unwind. Grab a cup of tea and a blanket, it’s time to nestle in and book-travel across different genres and create a unique reading goal.
Booktivist for Rangers
Books + activism = our new booktivist badge. Rangers will take their reading habits to the next level by exploring what empowers them through books. They’ll read things they want to learn more about like feminism, stories by Black British authors or the environment!
Don’t forget, these badges will be joining our current interest badge for Rainbows called book lover, so girls get to grow their love for reading through the sections.
Girls show you what the new Brownies book reviewer badge is all about
Our creator collective has given you a taste of what the new Brownies book reviewer is all about. The creator collective is a group of young members who create girl-led content for our social media channels.
Check out their TikTok video below:
Which new interest badges have we revealed so far?
Including the new reading interest badges, you've seen 8 new interest badges so far. They are:
- Bee rescuer (take action) for Rainbows.
- Celebrations (express myself) for Brownies.
- Thrift (take action) for Guides.
- Nostalgia (express myself) for Rangers.
- Wayfinder (have adventures) for Brownies.
- Book reviewer (be well) for Brownies.
- Bookworm (know myself) for Guides.
- Booktivist (know myself) for Rangers.
That’s still 64 interest badges left to see! Keep an eye out for more updates this spring as we confirm the launch date of all 72 badges and the share the practical things you need to know as a volunteer for when they launch.
Your questions, answered
World Book Day is Thursday 6 March 2025. In the UK, World Book Day happens on the first Thursday of March every year. In other countries, it’s April.
No. There isn't a new reading interest badge for Rainbows. The 3 new reading-related badges for Brownies, Guides and Rangers will join our current interest badge for Rainbows called book lover! So now girls can grow their love for reading through the sections.
Yes. We're creating new 'little' badge books or Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers. Each one will only host the new interest badges for your section. This means you won’t need to spend extra money on replacing a badge book with activities you already own. You can simply add to the current badge book you’ve got!
As part of our programme review, Rangers told us they also wanted a little badge book. We'll be listening for your feedback on those so we can make them better for the future.
We’re planning to merge our current badge books and 'little' badge books for each section and update them to our new brand in 2026. Handbooks will also be updated then too.
The little badge books for our new interest badges will cost less than the current badge books. They're smaller and use less materials and the price will reflect that. We're working with our team to find a price that is affordable for our members whilst still factoring in quality and the costs of producing them as sustainably and economically as possible.
No, there will be no new programme themes. All the new interest badges will come under our current 6 themes.
Our current interest badges are designed in our programme theme colours. Your feedback said you'd prefer to clearly see which badges belong to which section. So that's what we've done!
The background of each new interest badges is now colour-coded by section. That's light blue for Rainbows, yellow for Brownies, dark blue for Guides and purple for Rangers. And the theme colours are just around the edge.
You can expect our current range of interest badges to be updated with the same design when our new uniform launches in 2026.
You’ll be able to get your hands on the new interest badges from July 2025. The same time as programme’s 7th birthday! So you’ll have them before the new term starts in August and September 2025.
