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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

World Book Day - heaven or hell?

89 replies

Wnikat · 25/02/2021 15:23

Just wondered how the balance swings on World Book Day.

YABU - I love World Book Day and relish sourcing costumes for my children, which I do well in advance and actually relate to a book they like rather than whatever is lying around.

YANBU - Arghh how does it come round so often where did I put the sodding Harry Potter glasses

OP posts:
Dinkydody · 26/02/2021 09:01

Both which you can get in book form 🤔🙄

Svrider · 26/02/2021 09:01

YANBU ridiculous, unnecessary expense. 😡

PracticingPerson · 26/02/2021 09:08

My kids also loved reading, which is why they would have preferred actually reading books to faffing about in costumes.

Dinkydody · 26/02/2021 09:18

I was thinking more like a peach or a bar of chocolate Wink

Svrider · 26/02/2021 09:22

Oh should add, 90 percent of girls at our school have the costumes from Asda. The boys have on their football kits ( Manchester Utd, Liverpool etc)

One girl had her Halloween costume ( worlds worst witch) 👊

(although the girl had no clue that it was from a book)

Bringonthemushrooms · 26/02/2021 09:27

Our school don't make a big deal of it and always say not to waste money so they suggest a phone/dress down day and the children bring in their favourite book and a Teddy for a group story time

TheSockMonster · 26/02/2021 09:30

It's a nice dressing up day for some young kids. It's a competition to be the best for many of their parents. Let's not pretend it's anything deeper.

^This

And I don’t usually mind it too much as long as we have enough notice.

A PP commented that most the children come as characters that have originated from film or TV. Yes, I have noticed this too, but it tends to be families who either don’t want to or can’t afford to buy/make a costume that their child will not wear again. Cheaper to spend the money buying a spin-off book and send them in something they’ve already got. Yes, you could persuade them to go in normal clothes or with something you’ve cobbled together from what you have laying around, but the children just want to spend the day in a cool outfit with their friends.

Best WBD my DC’s school did was asking them to come in pyjamas (still a bit of a mad scramble to get clean ones that fitted TBH Blush) and bring a book they loved (or borrow one from the school library) a pillow/cushion/blanket and teddy too if they wanted. They pushed all the tables in the classrooms out of the way and set it up like a big sleepover and spent the day listening to books, sharing books with each other and with children from other years. The DC loved it.

Newkitchen123 · 26/02/2021 09:36

Let's just call it fancy dress day and have done with it.
If it's about books, take the books in too school and swap or read with each other. Do a project on why you like the book. Create some art work etc about the book.

3littlerabbits · 26/02/2021 09:38

I think it brings a new level to reading and being creative. Maybe it makes a few children get more excited about books because they get to dress up as a character. Or makes them interested in maybe keeping going with their reading. (All obviously all those £10 would of course be spent on boxes of books not costumes Hmm ) Not all children and parents will enjoy it. Plenty of things I don’t enjoy and can’t be arsed with from school (no cereal box is ever safe from being hacked to bits for projects, and scraps of cardboard and sellotape all over the house / making a cake to be sold at half the cost of the ingredients etc etc) but mean i think they should be stopped. There are reasons for all these things. Or - children could sit in a room and write lines and do pages of sums all day. Relax and enjoy, or opt out, or send child as Charlie from the chocolate factory with own clothes and a paper with golden ticket written on it.

3littlerabbits · 26/02/2021 09:42

@Newkitchen123

Let's just call it fancy dress day and have done with it. If it's about books, take the books in too school and swap or read with each other. Do a project on why you like the book. Create some art work etc about the book.
Why does ‘about books’ have to be a project or art work? Why can’t it be dressing up? Why so limited? Luckily many people don’t think these way or instead of musicals and film adaptions of books we’d have essays about them
StepOutOfLine · 26/02/2021 10:17

Who has talked about writing lines/essays apart from you?

Minikievs · 26/02/2021 10:19

Fucking hate it with a passion.

Massive bonus about lockdown/homeschooling, I don't have to fuck about with bloody World sodding Book Day

Docketpuo · 26/02/2021 10:24

I object to it being more about the costume than the book.
Why not just ask kids to being their favourite book to school (even if it's a library book)?

pursuedbyablackdog · 26/02/2021 10:35

I'm ambivalent about it. But pissed off it's happening this year. Kids aren't in school, and I have enough on my plate without having to think about costumes Most children dress up as film/ tv characters anyway, so it doesn't feel like it's much about promoting reading/ books anyway.

Newkitchen123 · 26/02/2021 14:21

I actually said do a project on it. Art was just one example. It could quite easily have been music. Would you like a list? They could act out a scene, they could make up a song. There are endless possibilities

Newkitchen123 · 26/02/2021 14:22

@Newkitchen123

I actually said do a project on it. Art was just one example. It could quite easily have been music. Would you like a list? They could act out a scene, they could make up a song. There are endless possibilities
Forgot to tag. This was to @3littlerabbits
FrenchBoule · 26/02/2021 14:26

Real PITA especially when teacher announces it on Friday afternoon and we live remotely.
No thank you. I have enough on my plate.

MargaretThursday · 26/02/2021 14:35

Depends.

Infant school didn't do it at all.

Juniors:
DD1 they didn't really do it, which was a pity because she'd have loved it.
DD2 they started by trying to put their own angle on it-they asked people to come as a famous person and bring a connected book. Made it into a competition over the fancy dress. Backfired in dd2's form as it naturally came into a popularity context as the children were voting on it. When prize winner went up to collect the prize in assembly she was asked who she was and said. "I haven't come as anyone, I just like this dress."
So after that we had normal dress up and bring a book (no competition) and dd2 loved it. She went as Laura from Little House books, Matilda, Len from Chalet School. I made the costumes and she really enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed it, as I like costume making.

Ds hates dressing up. He hates even "please wear red for red nose day" type dressing up and has done since toddlerhood. He gets very worked up, and will end up vomiting, which is the way his anxiety plays out. Normally all over everything on the way into school. So he missed all except one. The one he did manage he went as Biggles. He looked adorable in RAF costume, but by the time half a dozen parents had stopped him and said how lovely he looked, he had a face like thunder. I told him the next year he was going in school uniform as the School Prospectus. Grin
Strangely you can dress him up in anything (literally anything-tights, dresses, strange hats...) to go on stage and he doesn't bat an eyelid. Ask him to put on a blue t-shirt for school and he's off...
He tells me they are totally different.
Actually he even gets stressed about Mufti days at school.

3littlerabbits · 26/02/2021 15:49

@Newkitchen123 I read do a project as write some kind of essay. I see you mean other stuff too and the other things you suggest sound good. Mine like dressing up and they like books, and world book day was so fun for them. I’m sad they don’t get to do it any more.

Crazycakelady17 · 26/02/2021 16:02

We hate it in this house thank goodness DD is in y6 the last time!
She’s still in school so we have to do it she loves books but hasn’t liked dressing up since she was about 4!
We also have to make a character from a potato what level of shit is this?!

Newkitchen123 · 26/02/2021 18:37

[quote 3littlerabbits]@Newkitchen123 I read do a project as write some kind of essay. I see you mean other stuff too and the other things you suggest sound good. Mine like dressing up and they like books, and world book day was so fun for them. I’m sad they don’t get to do it any more.[/quote]
The biggest problem is it has become nothing about books and everything about fancy dress

ForeverBubblegum · 26/02/2021 21:11

I don't mind it, but I put little effort in. DS is dinosaur obsessed, so one costume does book day (harry & dinosaurs), haloween, any other dress up or just general running round roaring. He's on his second costume, but the first fitted for nearly 3 years (started to big, then was shoehorning him in by the end) so cost per use isn't to bad. Will probably get away with re-using the costumes with DD, at least for the toddler years until she starts wanting to pick her own.

hotchocandtwosmokybacon · 26/02/2021 22:25

I think buying a new costume every year is not too environmental friendly. However, it gets my child excited and happy so I still go along with it.

42andcounting · 26/02/2021 23:51

Our school don't do dressing up, which is brilliant. The Head Teacher has her head screwed on, and is conscious of cost, waste, competitiveness, etc. She also wants WBD to be about reading!

Last year kids had to bring their favourite book into school and periodically throughout the day they rang the school bell as the signal to "drop everything and read" Grin

The year before they had to send in a photo of themselves with some books, most inventive photo won a prize.

crystalcherry87 · 27/02/2021 00:03

hell