My name is Simba and I am the school dog at Princetown Primary School on Dartmoor. This week saw the return of World Book Day! I have never been so confused…where had all my children gone?!

All day I was surrounded by witches, wizards, aliens, grannies, mad hatters and other characters. It wasn’t until the afternoon when the children began losing bits of their costumes that I realised that it was my school children - dressed up!!

My mum tried and tried to dress me up before we got to school but it was very irritating and anything that was put on me came straight off again.The children at school are always reading and I love to be a part of this.

Aside from listening to the children read, one of my hobbies at school is to pull the labels off of the shelves as it means the children spend a little bit longer cuddling me whilst they are choosing a book!I love to listen to the children read, they read me stories about all sorts but my favourites are ones about cats and other dogs.

During my time at Princetown, my role changes all the time but I always find time to settle down somewhere and fall asleep to the sound of the children retelling their favourite tales.

The sound of their voices is soothing to me and I think my soft fur is soothing to them. I always manage to get myself in the perfect position so that they can stroke my ears and read at the same time!

Sometimes children can feel a little shy reading aloud to another human but they know that they can always read to me. In the modern world of technology, it is always nice to see a book capturing the children’s imagination – especially when they find a book cover that looks like me!