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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wish World Book Day should fuck the fuck off!

302 replies

Toraleistripe · 24/02/2016 18:56

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!

OP posts:
Fridayschild5 · 26/02/2016 23:44

I've stressed about this for three years and this year with one week's notice from the school have given up. DS will be wearing his crocodile onesie and going as the Angry Crocodile.

Fridayschild5 · 26/02/2016 23:46

or even the enormous crocodile!!!

Artandco · 27/02/2016 07:38

Mine would love to go naked to school! I darent even suggest it as they would be out the door commando in seconds

Shannaratiger · 27/02/2016 07:44

YANBU hate dressing up here as well. He'll just wear normal clothes and he won't be alone.

ErgonomicallyUnsound · 27/02/2016 07:56

Aye it's bullshit, feeds the competitive parent, along with Easter Bonnet parade etc.

DD will be going as Hermione again. Cloak etc - minimum effort, everyone knows who she is and she's read the actual book.

I think a much better idea would be to ask them to bring their favourite book in and talk to the class about why they like it.

Flashbangandgone · 27/02/2016 08:04

Shouldn't WBD be renamed World Dressing Up Day or a World Lets Stress Out Parents Day or maybe even World Competitive Mum's Day..... All 3 are closer to the focus of the day than actual 'books'!

Does this pantomime in any way deepen children's love of books? I struggle to think it does... Am I just being cynical?

Flashbangandgone · 27/02/2016 08:07

I think a much better idea would be to ask them to bring their favourite book in and talk to the class about why they like it.

^
Agree... WBD's focus would actually be 'books' - wouldn't that be a novelty!

Flashbangandgone · 27/02/2016 08:15

If the comments on here are in any way representative of the wider world, then it's clear that WBD causes far more bad (as in angst and stress) than it does good (promotes books). I think we should take back control and campaign to ban the collective madness that is this wretched thing... At least in its current form. What about a online petition... Would there be 100,000 to get a parliamentary debate on this?!? Or am I going a bit OTT here.

debjud · 27/02/2016 10:49

Thumb Thanks for replying (only one so far....) - but I have short hair... - any other suggestions would be v welcome

mogloveseggs · 27/02/2016 11:04

Debjud pj's and a crown-princess and the pea?
Or flannel nightie red riding hoods grandma?

SagaNorensLeatherTrousers · 27/02/2016 11:25

mog's ideas are great and easy! I like the Red Riding Hood's grandma idea...dressing gown and slippers...sorted!

CrieffBobsledTeam · 27/02/2016 12:14

lorelei9 re World Book Night - actually it's meant to be about people who like reading encouraging people who don't read to try it, by giving them a copy of a book they love themselves (which are supplied by WBN). I did not know this when I registered as a "giver" a few years back (obvs should have read all the T's and C's but a friend who'd already done it told me about it and I assumed she'd mentioned everything) and selected a book that I absolutely love but is something of an acquired taste and contains many references to classic literature - I had some people in mind to give them to. I then got this email about finding contacts in prisons and other places where reading is less common! I wrote back and said I'd made a mistake and they should deselect me and choose someone else but they just said I should do my best. So I gave them to the people I was going to anyway. So, the aim is encouraging reading, same as WBD, rather than readers swapping books, but in practice it may not work out like that! At least World Book Night is held on the proper date though, that bugs me far more than anything else about WBD, that the whole world has it on 23rd April and we have a different date but still call it "World" Book Day.

Selenatwins · 27/02/2016 12:27

My twins are going as Tom Gates and the kid from Diary of a Wimpy Kid, so basically their own clothes.

I suppose for poem you could do Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen and put a smudge of chocolate by your kid's mouth?

Obs2016 · 27/02/2016 12:45

Yes. Hate it with a passion. Stupid dressing up day.

Obs2016 · 27/02/2016 12:45

Yes. Hate it with a passion. Stupid dressing up day.

Obs2016 · 27/02/2016 12:46

Yes. Hate it with a passion. Stupid dressing up day.

BathshebaDarkstone · 27/02/2016 12:54

YANBU. I've just bought Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan costumes for mine. Yet another week when things they actually need will have to wait. Angry

BathshebaDarkstone · 27/02/2016 12:56

YANBU. I've just bought Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan costumes for mine. Yet another week when things they actually need will have to wait. Angry

Inkanta · 27/02/2016 12:58

Yes I agree OP. And it always falls on a freezing cold day and they look frozen!

Glad mine have left primary school.

DrSeussRevived · 27/02/2016 13:02

Agree Inkanta, that's why the pillowcase type suggestions always make me curious. It's March!

Verbena37 · 27/02/2016 13:51

smileandnod our's have to dress up as something from a poem too. I'm either sending DS's (yr6) with a plain top with a chocolate cake drawn on (michael Rosen poem) or with his Grim Reaper costume on (found loads of morbid grim reaper poems online).

He hates dressing up though and I think by the end of yr 4, there is no need for dressing up. They don't put enough emphasis on the actual books which really annoys me!

JenEric · 27/02/2016 14:59

Every year a tonne of parents bitch so this year we got a letter 2 weeks before book day saying they are doing bedtime stories so bring yours pjs slippers and favourite bedtime story.

Now parents are bitching that they already bought a costume ffs. School can't win. (I hope they stick with pjs)

starry0ne · 27/02/2016 16:13

JenEric that is a lovely idea...I agree the focus needs to be on the books not a costume..

I told my DS ..He can go in Diary of a wimpy kid t-shirt and I will buy him a kindle book with the money I save...

SagaNorensLeatherTrousers · 27/02/2016 16:19

I'm going to remember Diary of a Wimpy kid for next year...this year it's the ol' uninspired Harry Potter glasses, tie, wand.

PennyDropt · 27/02/2016 16:49

Surely there's a year to prepare for this.
It was quite a new thing (as far as I was concerned) when my DCs were at school, so quite last minute.
But you must have a year to think of something, or a year for DCs to find some prop to use.

Perhaps you can pass things on, once DCs leave, via school face book page or something