to loathe 'Book Day' as an expensive waste of time?

[morethanmum]

when every child dresses in a shop bought costume, pretending that Snow White etc is their favourite character? First time this was thrown at me, dd dressed as Katie-Morag, no-one recognised her, and every other child turned up as a Disney princess. Currently dh is sulking at the expense as I have promised to buy a Hermione Granger outfit. DD thrilled not to be the odd one out again. Not her fave character, but how do you do Darrell Rivers or Clarice Bean? Rant over - have had bad day.

I imagine the other girls turned up as a Disney Princess as that was the fancy dress outfit theu already had!

I know! But now she's 9 I can't squeeze her into it...

I put DD in her ballet clothes with ears and a tail, added whiskers and voila- Angelina Ballerina!

YANBU - this shit mightily pissed me off when the TWINS were at junior school.

esp as we were as skint as a skint thing on skint tuesday.

i once made them into playing cards from alice

everyother fucker was batman or a fairy

and my kids were in painted cardboard boxes - that i had to do after chuffin working all bastard day becuase of course as a mum - i have eff all else to do for fucks SAKE!

DD wants do be "My naughty Little Sister"

anyone want to lend me a 70's style yellow dress?

she can already do the surly expression so we don't need to borrow one of those

One boy at ds's school turned up as Dick from the Famous Five. Only problem is Dick basically wears school uniform. So it was kind of hard to tell.

Ds (4) went in his Native American/Red Indian costume - dh read him Hiawatha and even gave him a copy of the poem to take. But on the way home ds suddenly turned to me and said, panic-striken, 'I forgot to tell them I was higherwoffa, Mummy'. Took me a while to calm him down!

• The only Native American I have ever known, a Sioux warrier, preferred Red Indian.

My DD went as Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prarie. At her school they give a prize to people whose costume's aren't guessed. She just wore pretty much normal clothes & a headscarf (not sure LI wore those!)

also have a sponsor form

we have to sponsor DD to read/be read to/colour in picture

Right - I'm forcefeeding ds Famous Five so that Dick becomes his favourite character and I only have to do a school uniform on this Godforsaken 'festival'.

All you need to give him is a bottle of ginger beer. And possibly a toy dog to play Timmy.

I thought the parents were very smart.

She also has to take a book to swap at their swap shop. Not happy - I will have to buy one as we usually use library and only buy favourites.
LOL for playing cards. May suggest jeans and stuff dog..

Mine went as a witch and said she was the witch from "Room on the Broom". We did her hair in a plait and she took a stuffed cat with her. At her school there was also a Stig of the Dump, a Hermione Grainger (black cape and a drumstick for a wand), a Pippi Longstocking, a Willie Wonka (top hat wig and shades!) and yes an awful lot of ballerinas. I actually think it's fun, my DD enjoyed it and they had an actress from a local theatre company come into their school to do a story telling workshop. Don't think the costumes need be expensive.

Now what I do object to is all the bloomin' charity/fundraising activities - this week they brought home some Barnados thing, there is the Christmas box thing, next week it's the school Fayre and we are all expected to support that. I seem to be handing over cash left right and centre.

Brilliant idea to choose Dick from the famous five.

I though this thread was also about those book markets that are set up in school halls, with the idea of parents visiting and buy books with their children at pick up time.

I am no fan of this forced selling, as I'd reather take ds2 to a book shop with a bigger selection and more on special offer. And our book market doesn't accept book tokens!

Totally agree about book market and catalogues - also ds started reception recently and so far we've had a sponsored thing, a balloon sponsorship thing and ges day. Also one catalogue... dd has to take a donation to charity for harvest festival rather than a tin of beans. It does seem like an envelope of cash goes in quite often...

Totally agree about book market and catalogues - also ds started reception recently and so far we've had a sponsored thing, a balloon sponsorship thing and ges day. Also one catalogue... dd has to take a donation to charity for harvest festival rather than a tin of beans. It does seem like an envelope of cash goes in quite often...

Yes, I think you are being unreasonable. It can cost loads or it can cost nothing. Mine have always dressed in home-made costumes cobbled from things we have at home, or very rarely charity shop finds, and it's never been a problem. Yes, some people go in ready-made costumes, but plenty don't, and to be honest the ones who've made their own costumes usually look more interesting. And the children are usually more chuffed over their outfits! To ward against people just coming in Disney outfits, our school sometimes has a particular theme to book week - this year it is adventure stories. Yes, there will still be some bought outfits, but at least they're trying to get people to think of particular books. They have specified no Harry Potter though - I think everyone's sick of that!

Our school often does the book stall thing too, but again it's take it or leave it. There's no pressure and it's in the main hall so if you really don't want to go you can whisk the children away without going anywhere near the book displays.

Now, what really annoys me is children dressing up for 'book day' in costumes that have absolutely nothing to do with a book, but a film or TV series instead. I'm a stickler I'm afraid, I insist it has to have been a book first, not some 'book of the film' rubbish!

YANBU, definitely to my mind. Thank heavens DD1's school doesn't bother with this. Life is too short to do bloody costumes.

so agree with you morethanmum ! and often they aren't even dressed as a book character - they're from a FILM - drives me mad. Ds once went as Charlie Bucket which meant he wasn't especially recognisable except for the Wonka choc bar I lovingly fashioned from foil and paper. Last year he went as a lost boy from Peter Pan and I made a bear skin costume which was a pain and expensive to buy the pesky fabric...I am very glad this will be his last year of such stuff as he's off to secondary in September !

plus irritated by the million Harry Potters that turn up -gah !

We don't do this Book Day dressing up at all at our schoool. Boy, am I glad.

We rather enjoy it, my dds like making costumes. But I do agree about the FILM characters - I'd send them all home to get changed and come back as book characters. The clue's in the name of the day really.

Darrel Rivers would be easy. Grey pinafore and tie, boater, lacrosse stick (could be made from cardboard), Prefect badge, satchel.

We don't mind it either but I agree the shop-bought ones are a bit of a swiz. Last ds went as Just William, with dirty knees, a knobbly handknitted tank top, one of dh's ties under one ear and his school shorts.
We filled his pockets with conkers and a pop-gun.
He didn't win, but lots of the teachers said what a fab costume and he had his picture taken looking cheeky, so he came home content.
Agree totally about the infernal book fairs. Every dodgy book on ds' bookcase was bought at school if you please

Oh you are so NOT being unreasonable. This caused melt down last week in the Teapot household. I don't mind it but I need more than a weeks notice (as I actually left the country, on my own, with my children the day after the note was given out)

Many strops later DD went as Heidi. She wore her school summer dress with a white pillow case tied round her waist as an apron. DS kindly volunteered (he had no choice actually) his toy sheep which was turned into snowflake the goat by means of a name tag.

And then I had to fork out for two books in the school hall after, when I could have got a whole set from the Book People.

And two of the girl's in DD's class went as Pop Stars, what is that to do with a book ? The person who won was really good though and not a disney outfit, he went as Cat in a Hat.

My first experience of the whole dressing up thing as you can tell !

We had ones nearly every week for a while to promote school dinners. The catering company just went mad!

Eventually a discreet word in the heads ear by many mums put a stop to it. Once or twice a term is great fun imo but it was getting ridiculous.

And why does the school always let you know with about two days to spare??? Don't they think any mums work / have busy days / have a life?

Once a week! OMG! I have solved the problem this year by hinting to granny, who offered to buy costumes...so we have Juliet (dd just read the kid's version) and Harry Potter. I am going to ask her teacher how it helps to encourage reading when I know of one child going as Spiderman, who I don't remember as a book. Sadly, we did homemade for a while til DD got teased. Same with pierced ears - she had them done to fit in...