To say that World Book Day should be about BOOK characters?!

[mrsbn1988]

This is lighthearted .

But AIBU for getting an irrational rage that there are kids dressed up as Elsa or Moana or Marvel someone every WBD?

This stems from the fact that I've just been looking for a WBD costume from a well-known supermarket and spotted a Bluey costume. Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE Bluey, but Bluey was created for TV. Same as Peppa Pig.

I KNOW there are story books around that feature these characters, but they were originally created for TV or film, so they don't count.

And yes, characters like Harry Potter do, because they were originally book characters before the film adaptions.

I'm interested to hear other's opinions. Is World Book Day just becoming an excuse for kids to dress up in their favourite fancy dress outfit without actually thinking about the book element?!

Now that I’m on my soapbox, I’ll just add that it should be changed to world reading day and instead of costumes and crafts, they should explore different ways of accessing literature and information via paper books, electronic sources, graphic novels, theatre, audio books, reading aloud, dyslexic friendly fonts etc.

I can't be bothered getting worked up about it to be honest. When I worked full time teaching I used to have a selection of costumes for children to dress up in as many parents couldn't afford yet another expense.

As a parent myself now I couldn't care much either way. If a child wants to dress as Elsa or Moana or Mr Incredible etc and they have fun then it's a win in my opinion.

Although my 3 year old would love a bluey costume for his dressing up box so I may have to keep an eye out in the post WDB sales.

Last year when my DD was only 4 I found it hard to explain how Elsa wasn’t a book character when we have several frozen books and to be honest I didn’t feel the upset was worth it. I’m having the same issue this year about a Disney princess where we have the book and I don’t want to take the joy out of DD reading about her favourite characters. I also can’t afford a whole new costume that will never be worn again if it’s something I’m insisting on

100% this. I must post the same every year but the trick is to see what costumes you already have / can adapt - then decide what their favourite book is.
We managed, pippi long stocking, Heidi, black Beauty, ballet shoes, Charlie bucket, Artemis Fowl.

Ours is wear pyjamas and take favourite book.

YANBU!!!!
Hate the wankery & competitive parenting around it and disagree 100% with these stupid events. Schools can have lots of costumes & resources available in classes for kids to enjoy being creative and winging it to dress up as a character as part of play. Lots of craft resources could be out, it's possible to organise cross class groups to do short, FUN activities, hear reading of the books and learn something. Lots hate dressing up and have major anxiety around these days. ASD, ADHD and other ND are often excluded by the very nature of it being so pressured and contrived.

When my DDs were at primary school for a few years they could chose what book characters they wanted to dress up as.
Then they changed it so the kids had to dress up as a character from the Where's Wally books.
That really pissed me off. Yes it's a book but not exactly packed with words. I'd rather see kids dressed as Elsa, at least it is a book with words (not just four sentences per page).
To this day I don't know what the school was thinking.

the trick is to see what costumes you already have / can adapt - then decide what their favourite book is.

A large majority of the children will be doing exactly that though by dressing as superheroes or disney characters. Children are much more likely to have those dress up outfits so it makes the most sense to already wear what they have.

@RagingWoke This is the way it should be, though. Your DD sounds like she has a great imagination!

Instead, what is happening is that far too many are choosing their favourite screen character, loosely linking it to a book they may or may not own, which results in WBD having very little meaning at all.

There may as well just be a mass 'dress up as whatever you want' day at the end of term and be done worn it.

Ideally yes but we can't afford new stuff so the kids just raid their dress up boxes and probably end up as a Disney princess.

done with it*

I used to love WBD when mine were young. If I bought anything it was from the charity shop. Along with WBD we would also have St David's Day (Welsh rugby tops for boys and girls) and the junior school band usually took part in a music festival and required costumes for that as well. My dream was to find a book about a rugby player who played the trumpet to cover all three at once!

Before I had kids I used to think like this. Now I just don't want to have to buy yet another fancy dress costume so they go on whatever they want. School are doing 'bedtime stories' this year so just going in pyjamas which suits me too. I think especially at the moment, expecting people to have to buy outfits to wear for one day is unreasonable.

I don't care what my kids dress up in, all there actual favourite book characters are just children- there are no cool costumes for that. They would just have to wear home clothes and explain to everyone that they didn't forget, they are just dressed up as Nicholas from My Brother's Famous Bottom, but Nicholas just wears normal clothes.

I'd rather just let them wear a dressing up costume we have, like Jessie from toy story, rather than buy one from a supermarket and they can pretend to have read the actual Mary Poppins books

Agree

Interested to hear some of the books please! DD8 is looking for recommendations and seems to like things that aren't totally mainstream.

I wonder how many Matilda costumes will sel this year

I completely agree. Dressing up has nothing about fostering a love of reading. There are so many other things school should do. I believe all schools should be making sure accessing education is cost of living proof.

Every Marvel character started in a book. Look down upon them all you like, but it still remains that comics and graphic novels got more children, particularly boys and children with LDs like Autism, ADHD and Dyslexia, engaged and free reading than you realise.

Films can also be the 'in' that children need to want to read. And after all, they're all based in communication, language, history, the oral storytelling of history, mythology, heroism, morality and nature - stories are fundamentally communicating the nature and questions of human experience.

In itself, writing is just marks on a page - it's what those marks represent that is transcendental.

Two words. Bore Off.

YANBU.

The idea is that children share their favourite books. It doesn't have to entail a shop bought costume, it's a celebration of imagination.

DD went one year as princess smarty pants. DH gets the credit for all her wbd costumes. She's also gone as Winnie the witch and won a prize for that. Normal clothes in both outfits.

It should be about books and not fucking costumes

My son's favourite book is his Match annual so he's going in his football kit. Does that get your approval? 🙄

My son's favourite book is his Match annual so he's going in his football kit. Does that get your approval? 🙄

Why do people get so salty about people expressing an opinion?