AIBU that world book day doesn’t support reading, but instead supports the buying of crappy costumes on amazon?

[Midlifeargh]

I really am starting to hate world book day.

Sure, it comes from a great place.

But sick of making costumes because I’m too cheap to buy them (also don’t like throw away fashion).

Also sick of it always being MY problem because I’m the freaking woman.

Am I being unreasonable that world book day does more to support amazon.com’s costume department than actual reading?

(I sort of want to be unreasonable in thinking that, to be honest!)

YANBU our school are doing a book swap instead- much better idea!

Yanbu - hate it

I can knock put costumes so I don't really mind but -

I walked past a parent at the school earlier this week saying to her 8 year old "YOU won't dress up will you, just wear your football kit." And he looked disappointed.

I think the dressing up just provides another excuse for some parents not to bother with boys because boys 'don't read' and it's not worth the effort.

Whereas asking them to bring in a book they enjoy and can talk about at least focuses on encouraging that conversation between parent and child.

The theme this year is, 'Share a million stories', so I don't know what costume would be worn for that. A bookcase maybe? Something from Rudyard Kipling's 'Just So Stories' might be good. A bookworm :-).

I'm sure there are better ideas than mine and there must be worthier ways of celebrating 'World BookDay' than turning it into a fancy dress parade. I wonder how that all started.

However it gets done, it creates more wifework.

.... aaand now my Facebook feed is filling up with kids dressed up as Disney princesses or characters from films who are not book related at all...

Minecraft seems popular on nine

YAnbu. Im a single mum with disabilities. I barely have enough energy to get up every day let alone go too work and feed my children. Making outfits in top of that is a step too far, especially when my diva kids keep changing their minds. I can't afford to buy new and don't want to anyway. I'm all about the environment and having disabilities makes it very difficult to not always go for convenience so that depresses me anyway.
My other bugbear is huge artistic projects which take weeks to build and cause angst for kids and parents, especially working and single families or people with health issues etc. And then you get to see the proje t in situ and someone else hhas a dad who's a carpenter or welder or sculptor and everyone else's project looks absolutely shit by comparison.
It's so stressful, time consuming and none of it understands the nuances of different kinds of families.

I know of a school local to me where all kids have been given one book to choose a 'character' from. The Bible. The devil? Seriously though - poor kids!

I voted YANBU as i agree with you but at the same time ive bought costumes for my 5 year old and 3 year old & their both so excited Costumes cost £10 each and can go in their dressing up box later

YABU. Ours have said to please could all children bring in their favourite book. Children 'may' dress up as a book character if they would like to. If not please still bring in a book as we have lots of reading and book activities planned.

YABU. Ours have said to please could all children bring in their favourite book. Children 'may' dress up as a book character if they would like to. If not please still bring in a book as we have lots of reading and book activities planned.

Totally agree OP. The costumes are just tat. No need for it.

Very few parents have the time or the skills to make costumes these days so they will buy the tat from Amazon.

Dear schools, please get rid of dressing up days.

I thought we had got away with it. DS is 10 and we have never had to participate before. Unfortunately not this year .

We are one of those dress as an adjective schools . I just asked what he wanted to do and so he is off to school in a tracksuit carrying a football wearing a baseball cap, adjective “sporty”. So you know he is pretty much dresses as himself.

I also won’t be taking a picture and Facebooking it which has already started this morning.

My other bugbear is huge artistic projects which take weeks to build and cause angst for kids and parents

Agree. Fortunately for ds, DH was very good at this sort of thing. He was lucky he had DH, because I am utterly rubbish at anything involving craft. It's a different thread but why do parents have to do their kids' homework for them?

he is off to school in a tracksuit carrying a football wearing a baseball cap, adjective “sporty”. So you know he is pretty much dresses as himself

Yes I think ds went into school in his football kit more than once. It's quite useful when you can repurpose something (and far less wasteful).

Saying that it’s not compulsory to dress up doesn’t stop some kids feeling left out because they want to or parents feeling pressured.

Just make it about the books. And make it inclusive.

A book swap would encourage kids to read much more than wearing a costume. YANBU.

He did want to wear a proper football kit @cologne4711 just his own boys team but school said no football kits at all 🙄.

I agree totally 100%. Nowadays nothing can be achieved in terms of piquing children’s interest without making it fun. Everything has to be fun or they don’t give a shit. Do you think I was having fun when I had to memorise my timetables for instance? No. But I had to do it anyway.
Same with world book day and reading. Why not just bring your fave book to school? Why dress up in a costume you’ll never use again? Oh coz it’s not fun..I bet Jeff Bezos is having a field day.

DD has a book that spells our her name, the story is the little girl loses her name and hunts down letters to spell DD's name so she has gone as ....... herself, it was her idea, she could have gone as a fairy but chose to go as her!

Just make it about the books. And make it inclusive.

^^ Totally agree.

I volunteer in a Food Bank and a few of the mums who need to use the FB were really stressing out this week about World Book Day and dressing up, it is very easy for those of us who can 'afford to make the choice' to just say 'don't do it', we probably have the confidence and are able to install in our own children the self esteem to know that it really doesn't matter if you dress up or not. But for a lot of the people I meet in our FB they really want to 'conform' and not be seen as different. Our delightful retired Vicar was trying to make something out of some discarded choir robes .

I think it is a shocking idea, and can see no evidence that it encourage reading.

@HuntIdeas - same for DD's school, though they can wear costumes if they want.

Logic is that PJ's = dressed for a bedtime story.

A mum I know has sent her son as a superhero. No effort to link it to a book. This is a middle class educated mum. What a waste of time.

Luckily my son's little preschool does not do dress up, you can choose to take a favourite book and talk about it/show it to the group, which is much more relevant.

Although it's a myth that parents don't have the skills to help kids with simple costumes at home?!

Burglar bill - black & white striped tee shirt & black cardboard mask. Easy.

There are lots and lots of story characters that require little more than careful choosing of clothes you already have, a cardboard prop or two etc. My siblings two kids (5 &7) go as something brill every year, always from stuff at home, and my sister's not a SAHM with loads of time to handcraft a costume. One year it was Katie morag, with a jumper and skirt they already had in.