Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To HATE World Book day

182 replies

CurlyRooth · 04/03/2013 13:59

I love books, but I truly and utterly, really, really, REALLY hate World Book Day. I just see it as yet ANOTHER edict sent from above (i.e. 'well-meaning' schools) to make our lives as busy working parents the ultimate hell.

And it's the same old, same old every single blooming' year: a smattering of Harry Potters, a few shiny Cinderella's, and many more Where's Wally.

Time consuming, and tedious.

OP posts:
MrsKeithRichards · 04/03/2013 14:05

I love it Grin

And that's as a 'busy working parent' - sorry!

HeathRobinson · 04/03/2013 14:07

My kids hate it too and it doesn't make them read more.

Blu · 04/03/2013 14:09

I cannot possibly see how dressing in a bought-in-sainsbury's outfit as a princess or spiderman boosts children's interest in or knowledge of books.

However, DS's school has an actor from the War Horse film coming in to talk to them about his relationship with the book, and they have been reading books to have a debate with other schools about the best book. These are excellent activities IMO.

So it's the dressing up that schools fall back on rather than WBD itself that is the problem.

xigris · 04/03/2013 14:15

YNBU! I can't stand it! It's not that I begrudge the children having fun etc, it's because I'm the least creative person on the planet. There was a thread on this very subject a couple of weeks ago with many a parent wailing and gnashing their teeth. A very kind MNetter called Nicklebabe saved me and made lots of great suggestions. Nicklebabe if you're reading this I made a quiver and arrows to go with DS1's Robin Hood outfit. I made it!!!! I wasn't this proud when I got my BSc! Grin

SkinnybitchWannabe · 04/03/2013 14:18

My dss school don't ask the children to dress up, they just get a £1 voucher.
After nagging me to buy them a very overpriced book from school I showed them how much cheaper the same books were on Amazon and told them they could have two.

LaurieBlueBell · 04/03/2013 14:21

I didn't mind until this year. We have a huge collection of fancy dress costumes so it was pretty simple.

We are not dressing up this year, we have to decorate a vegetable as a book character FFS.

MrsKeithRichards · 04/03/2013 14:22

Dress a vegetable as a book character?

That's amazing! how on earth did they come up with that one?

moogalicious · 04/03/2013 14:26

I love the vegetable idea!

Another working parent who hates WBD. I was totally stressed out yesterday trying to think of outfits for 3 dcs to fit into the school's theme. Until I found out that the younger dc's school has suggested imaginary superheroes, which means they can go dressed as anything!

DC1 is going in own clothes as usual with a tenuous link to a book.

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 04/03/2013 14:26

Me too...hate hate hate it...........I rely on ebay for my costumes.

DS going into secondary school this september so really hoping this is the last year I have to endure it.

I dunno, year 6.....I really think they are too old to send to school in dressing up costumes!

xigris · 04/03/2013 14:26

Laurie just send in a plain lemon - hey presto! Lemony Snickett (sp) Grin

LaurieBlueBell · 04/03/2013 14:27

I have no idea MrsKeithRichards but I would kill to be just dressing up. I've got two dc at that school.

LaurieBlueBell · 04/03/2013 14:28

Brilliant xigris I am actually going to do that as a protest Grin

MammaMedusa · 04/03/2013 14:29

Aagggh - just bought a costume from Ebay and it STINKS!!

I actually love World Book Day though, even though it is stressful and I am not creative. The buzz in the playground is great. All the staff at my kids' school dress up, which makes the day, I think.

LightTheLampNotTheRat · 04/03/2013 14:29

Love books. Hate WBD with an intense and abiding hatred. Totally and utterly fail to see how those stoopid Disney princess/super-hero costumes make kids any more likely to read an actual book. And I have a nervous breakdown at this time every year trying to come up with something. Grr. The vegetable thing would tip me over the edge I think.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 04/03/2013 14:32

I love it.

DD is going as Gerald the Giraffe from Giraffe's can't dance. We even have the little cricket to sit on her shoulder.

Going to raid TKMaxx later on for DS's! Grin

nickelbabe · 04/03/2013 14:33

Actually, I think you'll find that World Book Day is an event set up by the Booksellers' Association and National Book Tokens in order to get children reading.
It is facilitated by your local bookshops paying out money to get in special £1 books, that the children get a World Book Day token to pay for.

Basically, it means that every single child can have a book once a year, that belongs to them, that they can own and read over and over if they want, that they never have to give back, and that they don't have to worry about being able to afford.

It's not about "yet ANOTHER edict sent from above (i.e. 'well-meaning' schools) to make our lives as busy working parents the ultimate hell. "

It's actually nothing to do with schools
it's your booksellers that started it, it's your booksellers that will get the most out of it, and it's your child that will keep something from it.

LightTheLampNotTheRat · 04/03/2013 14:33

See I just don't know where to start. How do you do a giraffe costume? PS I love that book!

nickelbabe · 04/03/2013 14:34

xigris - thank you GrinThanks

nickelbabe · 04/03/2013 14:34

(and I'm very impressed Grin)

LightTheLampNotTheRat · 04/03/2013 14:35

nickelbabe the book-token aspect is fab. The edict from (most) schools that kids should dress up is not fab. For me anyway, as a crappy mother who can't do costumes.

poshfrock · 04/03/2013 14:40

Laurie - just send a turnip from "The Enormous Turnip". Or if they allow fruit then how about the peach from "James and the Giant Peach".

My DD told me over the weekend that we will be getting a letter home today to tell us the "theme" for this year's WBD which is Friday. So we get the letter Monday pm and have to have a costume for Friday am. THREE days !

I am so not impressed. She has after school activities on Tues, Weds and Thurs so have no idea when the costume is going to materialise. Some notice would have been nice.

nickelbabe · 04/03/2013 14:46

Lamp - i know, I don't know why they can't just embrace it without having to do the dress-up thing - it means that something so wonderful and clever is turned into a big-hated-by-parents :(

Why can't the schools make it a craft day where they make the costumes (or at least masks or something bookish) rather than expecting the parents to do it?

BettySwollocksandaCrustyRack · 04/03/2013 14:47

Just send in a Peach and say it is from James and the Giant Peach!

Blu · 04/03/2013 14:48

nicklebabe - getting children into bookshops to spend their voucher - great.
Having a big celebration around books - great.
Dressing up in pink generic princess frocks, or staying up all night making a Willy Wonka outfit - less great.

I got DS to make a badge with said 'SS' on it, make a flat cardboard cut out dog and we fixed it to a stiff wire 'lead' and he went as Peter and Scamp from the Secret Seven.

I have erased the week spent making a home made tie-dyed, anatomically correct (twith thumbs, and a tail stuffed with semi-inflated tesco bags) iguanodon outfit, only to have it discarded at the last minute in favour of an IKEA knights cape and sword, from my memory Wine

DeWe · 04/03/2013 14:51

Well dd2's something different. She's going as Len Maynard from the Chalet School series.

Although they do a prize per form, it's a waste of any effort to get it, as it's done by popularity vote, hence last year the winner hadn't even bothered to dress up as a character Confused

Thankfully dd2 is very happy to go as what she wants knowing that almost none of her form and probably most of the teachers won't even have heard of the book.

However I have already lent Dd1's Hermoine costume out-although it's actualll Ginny Weasley this time I believe.