To think world book day is meant to be about books not any old fancy dress

[littleblackdress04]

I don’t get world book day costumes tbh. I thought the whole idea was to choose a character from a book you like and then dress as them- which I have seen some of today. But most of the pics I have seen on Facebook are nothing to do with books and are just tenuous fancy dress (batman, Disney princesses etc) - I mean you could argue that there are Disney princess books I guess?!

Aibu or just being grumpy!!! Grumpy probably!!

My kids never wanted to be someone out of a book so we never had the costume at home and I didn’t want to waste my time or money making or buying something they wouldn’t want to wear again. Spider-Man, iron man, etc, they wore those costumes more than they wore their everyday clothes at times so using them for book day was easy and didn’t cost anything extra. It always makes me laugh when schools say ‘just make something from something you at home.’ Yeah right.

I wish they’d ditch the whole dressing up aspect of it and make the whole day book/reading centred fun.

But it wouldn’t be fun for a lot of kids then. Many kids just aren’t interested in reading books, at least this gets them a bit excited about it for a day.

But I will definitely be glad to see the back of dressing up days, my youngest is in year 6 and thankfully very few kids join in with it in secondary school.

I can see where you’re coming from, but honestly, the whole make / buy a costume thing is such a waste of time and money that I can’t get judgy about parents just using whatever costume they already own, regardless of whether it fits with a book theme.

Plus as a pp said, the environmental impact of buying something that’s only going to be worn once or twice can’t be good.

Really it’d be much better if schools just stopped the whole dressing up thing, dressing up has got very little to do with books.

I'll be glad to see the back of wbd ti be honest. My dd hates reading, has no interest in picking up a book for pleasure even though we have tried and encouraged her over the years.. we are a family of book worms so it's a it upsetting but it is what it is.
She went in her own clothes today and just wasnt arsed. Shes yr 5 so just one more year to go

One of my kids schools has ditched dress up altogether. Did pyjamas for bedtime stories for a few years and this year nothing at all but activities in school (the older class were making story sacks for reception).

Other school does "dress up or pyjamas" so the over competitive parents could hand make Gandalf complete with a staff that was half a tree and destined to be confiscated by 9am with the child it was attached to, and others just rocked up in onesies (dd's is Harry Potter themed at least and she's read the books but not interested in the films much). Notable mention for the older primary kid in a Pikachu onesie whose mother had decided to mortify him forever by doing the school r run in a matching Pikachu onesie and even the dog had a Pikachu coat on!

WBD is one of those events that shows whose parents have time and money to spend on them (and are on top of all the schools requests). I think a really good solution is to have dressing up boxes in all the classes of primary, let the kids pick something out, discuss the books and the characters. Parents who can afford it can contribute to the box, those who can't don't. No-one has to panic on the morning!

I wrote it on the other thread, if anyone in authority gave a damn about supporting literacy they’d be re-opening the libraries and paying their staff again. That has beneficial knock-on effects on publishers and reading too. Not forcing parents to do homework for schools and buy rip-off costumes, that’s about encouraging commercialism and maximising income gain for the well-off (before they started being closed, libraries were told that they had to maximise income streams, if anyone’s interested. That’s all Britain’s governments have been about for decades: taking money from poorer groups to give to the rich).

But it wouldn’t be fun for a lot of kids then. Many kids just aren’t interested in reading books,

Like I said though, there is so much else they can do. Not just sitting reading. They can play games, make up their own verbal stories, do relay stories (my DS’s class did this and he came out very excited to tell me the story & how funny it was.) and probably loads more that teachers would know of. I’m not a teacher but they should be able to plan a day geared around books that engages all the class for at least part of it.

I've sent a lot of story book and curriculum theme linked dress up my kids have outgrown into school precisely to help families struggling with dress up days

One local primary had some past pupils (now in secondary) come in to read to the younger classes. My older DSs secondary school started a creative writing club today which he joined. There’s loads to be done with a bit of imagination.

Good idea kuponut

That’s actually something schools could do. Instead of having the DC come in dressed up they could ask parents to donate unwanted costumes and the DC could go as a class and pick out a costume that then comes off at the end of the day & stays in school.

Of course there are "books" about cartoon characters, but they're not books, are they? They're merchandise.

I love World Book Day! Yes it's a faff having to think about and organise the costume, but the children love dressing up and I love seeing them all walking to school in their costumes. Plus my kids enjoy getting their book token at the end of the day and buying a book with it.

I would much rather spend £20+ ( two kids so two costumes ) on books tbh to Yanbu in that respect,

But YABU to worry about what the children are dressing up as... if they have a book with them in I’d say it’s fair game 😄

Sorry but Disneys Frozen and Hans Christen Anderson is like comparing 4 in a Bed and Goldilocks They might share a theme but that’s it.
Much like Book Day having no relationship to actual literature,.

My DC squeezed into the same old Spider-Man and Power Rangers outfits every year. No way was I faffing around making or buying costumes. I knew my Dc read regularly at home. No amount of dressing up changed anything. For us anyway, it was a completely pointless exercise.

I'm not the kind of parent who can muster up a costume from crap I have lying around the house so yes, I outsource. DD went as Hermione Granger- picked a cloak out from amazon that def emulates the cloak Emma wore in the film. When she was younger she loved the rapunzel story. Again, bought the costume from the film because I'm not a creative maker with time on their hands! The dressing up is fine but I prefer to get her reading and talking about books year round but for more reluctant readers does it really matter if they're dressed as a film/ comic book character? Really?

I work in a primary school. The last couple of years there's been a lot of complaining about having to dress up so they didn't do it this year. Cue even more people complaining that their children were disappointed...

This year the reception children were all asked to bring in a short book that they like and had extended story time in the afternoon. They also made bookworms out of pompoms (which they LOVED). KS1 had to write a character description for a character from their favourite book, and draw a picture of them. KS2 did book reports and created an alternative book cover for their favourite book. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves in spite of the lack of costume.

Plenty of kids do like reading. And the ones that don’t probably won’t be that interested in dressing up as a character. Dc’s Primary used to have a Book Week with different activities, as well as dressing up.

Yabu, this is the first year in about 10 years that we haven’t had to dress up for WBD. Neither do we have to dress like an Egyptian, send dc to school dressed in random colours at short notice. This is one of the joys of all your dc having finished primary school.

Our school doesn't do dressing up for WBD. They give out the tokens, discus books and that's it.
Thank goodness for common sense.

We had World Word Day at our school, we had plenty of sporty and colourful words but also exoskeleton, multilingual, dishevelled and botanist to name a few.

Much like Book Day having no relationship to actual literature

It’s exactly this attitude that puts people off reading and getting involved in discussion about it. If you’re not reading War and Peace, why even bother.

Who is the arbiter of what’s literature? I had an arsey English teacher 30 years ago who told me Pratchett was puerile nonsense and I would never pass my exam using his books. I got an A.

I’ve recently gone back to reading his stories again and as an adult I can really appreciate his use of language, his descriptive writing, his imagery. So many wrote him off as not being proper literature, but look how he is regarded now.

Literary critics wrote of one author he lacks decorum, largely because he has written for an ignorant age and poorly educated audiences. He excels in “fancy” or imagination, but he lagged behind in “judgment.” He is a native genius, untaught, whose plays needed to be extensively rewritten to clear them of the impurities of their frequently vulgar style.

That author was William Shakespeare.

Spiderman is a comic book, surely that’s common knowledge? Disney princesses are also based on books. And it’s kids having fun at the end of the day, who cares if it’s a real book or not. However my child’s school didn’t dress up this year, instead all the kids had to decorate a potato as their favourite book character, it was great!

I hate world dress up day - seems completely divorced from books and reading.

Ds2 is finally at secondary school so first time I haven’t needed to do a costume - both dc hated dressing up so it was always a day they dreaded, even if they went wearing their own clothes.
Drawing a character on a white T-shirt would annoy me intensely as a waste of a T-shirt that you wouldn’t be able to wear again and it’s not like I have old ones sitting around.
One year the dc has to make a story hat which introduced a new layer of horror. And I don’t really want them wearing pjs and dressing gowns in school - bad from a safeguarding viewpoint and not very practical at this time of year.

I know I am a grump but just think if even half the money or a tenth of the money spent on costumes was spent on books instead it would just be so much better.

Plus there is a massive concentration on fiction - non fiction seems to be actively ignored.