Working mother’s World Book Day survival guide

[BeesAndChiscuits]

Posting in AIBU for traffic. But also because I know IABU not to want to devote hours of my time to crafting costumes for my precious dc.

What I want is costume ideas which optimise the effort to results ratio: good costumes, looking like the family has made a modicum of effort, which minimally tax my time and finances.

I got a costume of a scarecrow and a wizard of oz book off of amazin for £17

Sorry not off amazon I meant off of eBay!

If your ds is called William just send him to school as he is

Pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers - Tom from Tom's Midnight Garden.

Or don't send them in at all and say they went as the Invisible Man!

I let my kids sort out their own costumes. When they were little they would wear one of their dressing up outfits and as they've got older they've got more creative.

My favourite was DS1 going in as Katniss from the Hunger Games, complete with black wig and bow and arrow. Ds2 bought a gorilla mask, stuck on a trilby and went as Mr Big.

DS is going as the tiger from The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Purely because he already has a tiger onsie. This may not work past reception age

2 DS are doing Harry Potter this year and I know the robes will last a good few years plus the kids are Harry Potter obsessed 1 Harry and 1 Drayco

Eldest is going as Ash the pokemon trainer, he loves the pokemon magna books

Easy costume jeans hoodie jacket have splashed out in a pokemon symbol t-shirt and hat from eBay total for both £6 but you could use any t shirt and or hat and just make them a pokedex which my son is making himself out of cardboard and stuff printed online! Could be simple and more or less free!!

For last minute ideas search argos fancy dress lots of cheap Halloween costumes, monsters, witches and a cat outfit selling very cheap from £1.49!!

Can be adapted to lotsof books, room on the broom, dick whittingtons cat?

I need to source a ginger wig so DD can be Lily from Cogheart. It could be so much worse.

Fucking can't stand world bastard book day. Thought it was quaint the first couple of years. 8 years later I have a very different view. It's become so commercial with companies massively cashing in on parents who aren't creative or haven't got time by selling ready made outfits. It's got fuck all to do with reading - I'd rather the time / effort / money were spent on READING the goddam frickin books. I was devastated when my son moved up to secondary school that they bloody dress up there too. No fucking escape. Sorry - just had to vent.

Butchmanda I think you’re spot on. Just imagine if parents spent the money that they would have spent on costumes on books for their school libraries. £10 for a costume from Sainsbury’s worn once, or a couple of paperbacks for the school, read and re-read by dozens of children. We should start an mn campaign

MsMsrple - I have an ancient anthology with the poem of Vitea Lampada in it so technically it's a book
That's my story and I am sticking to it...

My ds (asd) hated dressing up so he always went as a book character who happened to wear school uniform. Not always well known charcters, mind and I hadnt actually read goodbye mr chips to check if it mentions uniform, but hey ho....

Bees that is a fabulous idea.

Normal clothes + bag of raisins = Danny champion of the world
normal clothes + bucket of dinosaurs = harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs
normal clothes + chocolate bar = Charlie and the chocolate factory
normal clothes + books = Matilda
normal clothes + hairband = Alice in wonderland

I don't get why anyone would spend money on it?

My daughter is going as the Grand High Witch. I’ve got an old black dress which is long on her and bought a wig and long gloves from amazon for a few quid. Poundland has these plain white masks which you decorate and DH, who is a lot more creative than me has copied the mask the GHW wears in the Quentin Blake illustration. My son is not that into dressing up but we have a Horrid Henry outfit I picked up in B&M so he’s wearing that. I wouldn’t stress about it. Kids don’t really care if you’ve made the outfit or not, it’s just a bit of fun!

Red Tshirt long, duct tape stripes round it, school shorts, spike hair with gel, make a cardboard sling shot - Dennis the mennis. School /ep shorts black hair in pony tail, black hat/beret red pompon with red Tshirt and black duct tape stripes = Minnie the minx

Alex rider = normal clothes too!

I thank God that we are past this. Fortunately I had a child with rather gloomy tendencies: Dementor one year; Nazgul the next. Same bit of black cloth with eyeholes

Black school pinifore dress, grey /black stripy tights or just grey or black tights, white/grey shirt, witches black hat print off Mildred Hubble school badge x 2 one for dress and one for hat, and add purple sash(length of material or scarf) round belt area = the worst witch

If your child has a suit, print of 007 id badge off internet laminate (or sellotape) = James Bond.

Football kit with girls dress over it - boy in the dress.

One year I deliberately interested my son in "funnybones" by Janet Ahlberg, because I knew we had a skeleton outfit from Halloween. He'd never heard of the book a few weeks before WBD!

Steer your child to characters from books that wear jeans and a t-shirt or a school uniform.
The Parent Controller
Tracey Beaker (or indeed a huge swathe of JW stuff)
Dork Diaries
Not the most complex books, but characters wearing children's clothes.

the great thing about the harry potter robes/witch outfits in general is they also double as Halloween outfits.

Can I recommend a glue gun? We just did our first 'homemade' costume and it was fun just glueing bits of fabric onto an old dress and DD is v pleased.

Butchamanda

I'm with you on this one.

I am a SAHP and I CAN afford to buy a Tesco dress up outfit. Buy WTF has this actually go to with encouraging reading?

Our school stipulates you have to take the book, no onesies, no face paint or coloured hair spray. Not to mention it's FREEZING here. No chance of walking to school in football kits or converted PJs.

Nightclothes work for either sex for the children from Peter Pan...