It’s one of those things that always seems so far off in my calendar, and then creeps up. There are piles of urgent proofs and manuscripts and hastily scrawled to-do lists, but this one day has been blocked out for months in advance. On a hot June day we held the annual primary school workshop at the school just across the road, when I, along with several volunteers from Random House, take over the year six classroom for a day. Everyone in the class writes a story and sends it over to our building in advance. We choose our favourite (the kids love a bit of competition), and then use it as a model for illustrating the publishing process.

‘Who here likes reading?’ My starter question is met with a slightly disappointing response: several hands go up but by no means the 99% I had hoped for. But as the day wears on a wonderful transformation takes place. They get very excited about yelling ‘mistake’ when an editor reads through the story, which we’ve intentionally peppered with typos. They are intrigued and horrified in equal measure when a production manager passes round some elephant poo paper. Designing their own covers and coming up with snappy shoutlines were also big hits. We left before the kids got their hands on the goody bags, but they were thrilled at the prospect.

The children really enjoyed the day, as did their teacher. They seemed genuinely interested in books by the end, so hopefully we have ignited a passion in a few of them. But it has a huge benefit for the Random House volunteers, too. We get to see where our books go, how vital they are. And each year I am staggered by the creativity of these young minds. If they carry that spark forward with them, there is no limit to what they can achieve.

Briony Everroad started the Publising Day workshops in 2008 and is an editor at Harvill Secker.