to wish World Book Day should fuck the fuck off!

[Toraleistripe]

Grrrrrrrr. I'm hate it. I am all for celebrating reading and books but this yearly dress up activity at school drives me mad!

I have 2 Dc, they both want me to buy ready made costumes which will cost £30 or more! So not happening. I will still have to cobble something together though. I can't be arsed. We don't have anything. I have scoured the Internet for ideas. Kids either don't like the ideas or I don't have the stuff.

Sod off WBD!

and the parents did nothing but complain saying that we were killjoys (they even threatened to go to the press).

who the hell would go to the press about this?!? Madness.

debjud have you got any black or brown wellies or some knee high (over knee) boots? Waistcoat, shirt and trousers. Eyeliner cat nose and whiskers and you could be puss in boots.

Or could you borrow a school recorder and raid your child's small toys for animals that you could place near you as the piped piper of Hamlyn. And just wear something very plain - and maybe make a paper hat and draw on a moustache? You could even get find a flute recording on YouTube and play that if someone asks who you are?

Or dress up as Cinderella pre-ball. Scruffy clothes and apron. Scarf tied up like Mrs moo on your head. Rubber gloves. Cloths and feather duster in hand?

Here's a novel (pardon the pun) idea for World Book Day ....... Read a fucking book!!! Like you are supposed to in school, without all the fucking hoo haa. OP I actually logged on to write your post so glad to see so many agree

My DD came home TODAY with a note saying she would need a costume for Thursday. So not impressed!!! Thanks one and all for some great last minute suggestions. I'm an English teacher so feel need to make half decent attempt to be literary!

typicallyenglishmustard could you be miss honey from Matilda? So basically just a teacher....but you could carry around a jar of honey? Older kids may appreciate the irony!

Or the boy in Matilda that has to eat the huge cake. Dress in trousers and shirt (boy-ishly) and have a big cake on your desk. You could even give slices out as rewards for good work!

I really enjoy it

To be fair our school partake every 2 years so we haven't gone it for a while. Dd11 wants to go as Katniss from Hunger Games (pretty easy, normal clothes, jacket and toy bow and arrow). However Ds8 wants to go as Stick Man.

This might sound like I'm was of those annoying kind that deliberately go overboard but honestly I'm not. He's wearing a long brown t-shirt, brown leggings I bought off eBay for £2. Then I scored some mounting board so it curved into a huge tube, cut a hole for his fave and arms and painted. I swear i did it all watching Call the Midwife on Sunday.

I am advantaged though as I'm quite creative so gave card and paints in the house. Also, my mother was incredibly into this kind of stuff and was really incentive so I've picked up lots of ideas/techniques along the way.

Or for George's mArvellous medicine borrow a lab coat from the science department and have various medicines sticking out of the pockets.

"Then I scored some mounting board so it curved into a huge tube, cut a hole for his fave and arms and painted. "

For the non creative, this reads:

"Then I isolated the fifth gene on a the tenth chromosome and changed my eye colour to turquoise"

We found out today and DD wants to be a bloody Moomin!!!

Found some scraggy white tights and white t-shirt but she's going to wear bright red shorts as don't have any white ones. A quick Google found me a mask which I'll print off next time I'm at work. That's her lot.

I think I'm lucky as other than Onesie day for Children in Need, this is the only dress up day she has (and DS still too young although he'll be wearing his Batman top to pre-school!)

But a fucking Moomin - out my arse on a Monday night. .. Argh!

DrSuess. It probably does! I didn't realise how lucky I was having a creative mother who was a whizz with cardboard. I just absorbed it all and it all came out when's kids starting having world book day.

A letter came home last night, although not in DS's bag.

God knows what happened to his copy, because he's usually very good at bringing everything out.

Another parent gave me a spare copy they had.

But, I bumped into a friend who has a child in the same year but a different class, and they had the same letter a week ago.

Still not much notice, but at least they've had that extra time to prepare, while the letters for DS's class were apparently just sitting in the classroom.

To make things just worse, DS has changed his mind, and doesn't want to go as the character he originally chose. Which is a pain because instead of wearing normal clothes in one particular colour and carrying a sword, he now wants a black robe with moons and stars on it, a magic wand and a tiny demon.

I'm delighted that DD is currently obsessed with Jacqueline Wilson. Once you stay away from the historical ones, it's all just ordinary clothes.

Hygge that's even more disorganised than my DC's school! I think they should give about a month's warning. For those who say that we've had a year to prepare, last year they announced the week before that they weren't having one!

Our school send out a document in paper and email form at the beginning of each term listings ll events for the next term. So beginning of January we get everything until Easter on a timetable so no surprises

Oh great, Fairy tale character.....big sigh

My DS now has to write a book review on his favourite book for homework so at least he is doing something to make him think about books..The costume certainly doesn't/

Thankfully my three don't have to do anything other than turn up dressed as a character and bring the book.

After so much time wasted on this, here is my humble offering this year. I tend to have a 'will not buy' policy and like to find things to alter, create and make. Last year my three dressed as the children from The a Railway Children. Twas so sweet. Homemade sticks from cardboard and strips of red fabric were the order of that day.

I know it was many pages back, but I decided to do ethnic representation this year. Dd looking forward to being Handa.

We need to dress a vegetable. Ffs

We need to dress a vegetable. Ffs

What an earth has that got to do with WBD

Oh yes, my friend's dd has to do that. I think she's going as a potato!!

I thought you meant dress a vegetable as a book character, not go to book day dressed as a vegetable.

Yes we need to dress a vegetable as a book character. By we obviously i mean the parents will be doing it 😐

Thank you to the op who suggested harry and his bucket full of dinosaurs. That's what my youngest is going as. Got a bucket from Poundland, sorted

This even made the news last night - both sides of the argument. So it shows how controversial the whole thing is becoming. It's a giant pain in the arse which, in my opinion, does not encourage a child to read a book whatsoever. You see kids dressed as characters from films that never even were books so they don't even understand the concept of 'a book'. Unless the character in the book has a picture or a detailed description of their appearance then how is a child actually supposed to know what they look like. The principle is good but it should involve reading a fecking book, not dressing up and causing no end of angst. How much better use of the four hours of costume design would be if a parent read a book with them instead.

I really love it. Am I weird?