World Book Day - just take in a sodding book

[Voluptuagoodshag]

I'm probably a curmudgeonly old shite but all this dressing up nonsense. Do they actually discuss why they like the book they are the character of? Some aren't even books because the kid is determined to dress as a Disney princess or a character from a game. It doesn't exactly encourage reading does it?
And then all the stress of creating a costume, not necessarily connected to a favourite book but what can be thought of or is easiest to do.
Why can't a kid take in a favourite book and write a wee story as to why or have a wee discussion about it.

A positive to come out of the pandemic is that I didn’t have to sort costumes for world book day! I was so surprised to see so many photos on fb of dc dressed up yesterday when I know the dc are at home not in school. It seems some schools have got dc dressing up for home learning. I’m very grumpy and can’t see the point at all. Spend the Costume money on a new book. (And before someone says that most dc already have a costume they can wear, I don’t think this is always the case otherwise why are the supermarkets generally full of costumes leading up to WBD? - I haven’t actually been in a supermarket for months, so not sure if this is the case this year, but it normally is).

I’m another firmly in the camp Of ‘how does dressing as a Disney Princess cultivate a love of reading?’

@AiryFairy1

I agree OP.

I thought we’d escaped the dressing up madness this year, but no, they’ve deferred it to next week.

And the costumes have to be home “created” and my DC are so particular “it HAS to look realistic, mummy” (complicated mythical beast - realistic?!) and me without a creative bone in my body. It’s very stressful🙄😩😭

I love that they love books, reading and discussing them quite eloquently, but I’m a fun sponge when it comes to dressing up. A funge if you will.

A funge?

DS1 has dyslexia and ASD. Reading and dressing up are both issues. He actually reads a lot, but mainly non-fiction or manual type books. His MO is a regular Lego/ Minecraft t-shirt and a copy of a relevant book. No additional cost. No book snobbery, but it represents what he actually reads so it pretty high on integrity.

The worst one was the year they were given a restricted list to avoid the more tenuous dress-up. Not books I was familiar with. I managed to get down to The Range, get foam balls, alice band and pipecleaners to make a boggle-eyed alien, then stuck that and a clean pair of pants on his head. (Aliens love underpants) The rest of y1 thought that was really funny.

Amazingly one of my children did win the class prize once. Child happened to look like a literary namesake and a pair of shorts, shirt, accessory and the book managed to be a winner.

I play the game but won't buy anything extra, do the literary snobbishness and try to keep it to what my children are interested in. PJ and book options are good, but book poverty is a real issue for many children.

To be fair kids love dressing up on the whole, and if they don’t school aren’t going to force kids to join in if they don’t want to

I love that they love books, reading and discussing them quite eloquently, but I’m a fun sponge when it comes to dressing up. A funge if you will

This with bells on.

I kind of get that the original objective was to get people thinking about books and what they mean to them.

But the whole dressing up thing morphed into an exercise in stealth oneupmanship which is stacked against a lot of people. Yes its "fun" in the way that a holiday is "fun" but the way its currently applied has very little to do with books and is another keepy uppy thing that parents have to find precious time or money for at the moment -- neither time nor money are in abundant supply for most families at the moment.

I think the vegetable thing which a lot of schools have done is more sensible because it takes the pressure off on cost and time but enables some of the same creativity.

@SleepingStandingUp

it's world book day not world made up character say so in that regard, YANBU! You think kids should only dress as real people from books not fictional characters on books??

I was responded to the OPs comment and meant they shouldn't dress up as made up characters NOT from books, ie from games or TV shows!

Funge = fun sponge (from The Land of Roar, might have spelled it wrong 🤷🏻‍♀️)