A STOURBRIDGE pub is gearing up to welcome Harry Potter, the Hungry Caterpillar and The Gruffalo through its doors this weekend.

Youngsters throughout the Black Country are dressing up as some of their favourite story book characters today as part of World Book Day.

And The Old White Horse, in South Road, will be celebrating the occasion, which encourages children to discover new books, throughout Saturday (March 4) by holding a community book sale and bookish breakfast.

Whether it be Fantastic Mr Fox or Tracey Beaker, children and their parents are being encouraged to dress up as any literary character they want, while being asked to donate any of their unwanted books to the sale, with all of the proceeds being donated to the children’s charity NSPCC.

The pub’s general manager James Doughty said: “The team are very excited about the World Book Day breakfast and are getting their costumes ready to join in the fun.

“We’re delighted to be supporting the NSPCC and all the fantastic work they do with our event, as well as encouraging children to discover the joys of reading.

“We feel that in this increasingly digital world, the simple pleasures of reading sometimes get forgotten and we hope our event will help local children try out new books, discover new favourite characters and fall in love with reading.

“We also hope to get parents dressing up and sharing memories from their childhood books to create an event that is fun for everyone.”