To dislike the waste of ££ on World Book Day

[Mimmi78]

Straight up, I love reading! I've always had a book on the go and feel a bit naked if I go out without having one handy. It's World Book Day this week, I love this idea too, creating a lifelong love of reading is a fundamental cornerstone of education. However, in my kids school there are 400 pupils, many of whom have parents who will spend anything from a few pounds to many pounds on a costume this week. Retailers are the big winners here I think. I've estimated that the money could represent around £2,000 at our school, it took the PTA 3 months to raise that to buy essentials for the school. AIBU to wish it was more about books and less about commercial dressing up! Prepared to be slated but interested in anyone else feeling conflicted whilst wondering how to dress a six yo as Tom Gates

I blame the parents, they are the ones deciding to spend a fortune and taking things away from books.
I have seen so many people researching any fancy dress - which is completely the backward way to do it. I cringe at all the Elsa/ Lego/Batman and so on outfits. Yes, you can find a badly written book after the movies, but that's not where the kids get their idea from is it.

My kids chose their favourite book for the day, then we create a "costume" based on the book - it cost usually 1 tshirt and the use of a few pens.
For a normal kid, wear no uniform and put a name tag with the name of the character. Job done.

Some of my kids friends had amazing costumes - nothing fancy, but very imaginative, I really admire their family and how clever they are. I hate craft and I am not that imaginative, but we can still draw or sew something book-related on a tshirt.

We all know WBD is coming, so I have no sympathy for people who blame lack of time either. You don't have to wait until the previous weekend, most of us work full time.

I do hate WBD with a theme - books are fine, but forcing children to chose something they don't like, don't care about is stupid.

I think it creates so much waste, all those costumes and props. Taking in a favourite book makes much more sense really.

I've never bought a costume for world book day! We usually scour through the cupboards and see what we've got and then fit a character to it. This year we've got mr stink (old cardigan, red ribbon, drawn on stubble) and Titchy Witch (OH's cast off Black T-shirt cut to zigzags along the bottom, stripy top and leggings underneath and a hat from last Halloween)

This is the first year Ive seen WBD costumes in shops. Maybe they didnt sell them in Wales.

@CheerfulMuddler ours can do PJs or a costume. Mine is going as Daisy from the Daisy series '...and the trouble with X'

Wouldn't it be great if everyone who spent money for world book day spent it on books rather than dressing up? Bring in your favourite book. Buy a new book
Join the library. Write a book. Not dress up as a TV character thinly disguised as something out of a book

Our school have said all children to dress up, but no Halloween or superhero costumes allowed (because no books have witches or superheroes in??)

The worst bit, in my opinion is that all children must bring in a minimum of £1 to go towards buying new books for the school.

Now, £1 isn’t a lot to most people, but for some it could be - especially if they have a few kids. The wording is what gets me too - surely it should be optional?!

One always went in jeans and t shirt and just decided which character they were going to be that year. The possibilities are endless.

As with all these things it's the parents who make it competitive. Just stop buying, send in something from home, all stress removed.

That should say Ours always went etc

Yes, and most of the dressing up around here is superheroes and Disney and not books anyway. So unnecessary.

I’m grumpy enough that this has started at nursery for my 2 year old let alone having to find a costume yearly for the next decade. I’m already jaded by the frequency of dress up days (our nursery got marked down for diversity by ofsted and now we have a dress up day for every national day going). I can sort of cope with wear yellow for St David’s Day but world book day seems to require another level of effort and thought and I really don’t want to spend money on a random costume that won’t get used.

Our school has really taken the biscuit this year - it's not a non uniform day, so if you're not in costume you have to wear uniform. And DS1 will be going as a cartoon character (books after the fact). This was a compromise after he announced he wanted to be a space-travelling stegasaur from his favourite book. I'm pretty crafty, but there's no way I can make a stegasaur costume by Thursday! Thank fuck I don't have to do it with DS2 too. It's a massive waste of time, effort and money IMO, they'd be better off bringing a favourite book in and talking about it or having someone come in to read to them, a children's author or something.

Our school just have to take in a favourite book.

Our school doesn’t dress up (thank goodness) and instead the school council are running bring and buy book stall, which will raise some money and will encourage reading and recycling books. A great idea in my opinion.

Thankfully this year we just have to decorate a brown paper bag (given out by school) to match the kids favourtite book then put the book inside and they will all show their bags and talk about the book.

It would be even easier if they could just take the book....... but I guess it's fun :D

thanks to Pinterest and the likes, we are really lucky that it does take no effort at all to find a costume to go with your book.
By the time I finish writing this post, I could have found something!

I think a day of fun around books is a great one. Many kids like to dress up and make costumes, others are happy to come in their weekend clothes with a bucket and a couple of plastic dinosaurs for example. It's only becoming unreasonable because of the parents who decide to make it either a competition or a lazy day.

Ps if anyone needs an easy outfit. George's marvellous medicine. Red top and jeans then put some tissue paper into some recycling (washing up bottle, shampoo etc) / take a pot and spoon.

I've just looked on Pinterest for DD's choice and they're all obviously bought costumes.

It really isn’t difficult to make a costume for either gender from items you already have - use a nightie and you can be Sophie from the BFG for example. There are plenty of resources online for very easy costumes requiring minimal effort. In the time you wrote your post you could have googled it. Last year I used a pair of rabbits ears we had from Easter ( Poundland) and used face paint and regular clothes to make Miffy. My DDs school is very into dressing up so we’ve already had Victorian day and Pirate day this year. If you are weirdly without a single idea I’m sure you could borrow a costume or failing that Oxfam has been selling donated costumes. YABU.

If you're happy to go as just anyone, sure. As your favourite character, or even any character you've read - not necessarily.

PJ idea is great too, I will definitely throw that in the ring next year! DS class are doing a reading assembly that I'm excited to see as they have chosen favourite books. I do worry about both the waste as well as the impact on low income families who must feel pressure. I have a friend with five kids and it causes her a great deal of anxiety.

I also hated WBD. It’s about dressing up not really about books. With 3dc at the same school it was always a giant headache to come up with 3 costumes.

But the school seemed to default regularly to dressing up for so many things. Even my dc got tired of it. Surely there are other ways to teach a topic enjoyably without resorting to fancy dress every single time.

nope no idea what dressing up has to do with books n how it will benefit future readers. i love books have always read vast quantities of books if i dont have a book i start to feel panicky!

IMO it does encourage reading but at my DD's school they invite a children's author along that signs books. We were lucky enough to have the author of my DD's favourite books last year so she was excited by that.

it's just a bit of fun, there's always parents who will moan if they have to be involved in any way with anything school-related. Just encourage your child to see it in a positive way, why does everything always have to be so damn negative all the time.

Pick one book, pick one character, and do something vaguely related to it, how hard can that be.

Yes, I agree, isn't it the 'fun' element that is encouraging the interest in characters in a book?