To HATE World Book Day (or rather kids dressing up for it)?

[Silverbook]

That's it really-
As a parent and a teacher I absolutely hate the yearly "dress up as your favourite character".

As a teacher it is such a visible divide of the haves/have nots.
As a parent I feel under pressure and it adds to the mental load.

I'm absolutely on board with promoting literacy and reading for enjoyment but think WBD has become very commercialised.

If children wanted to participate at our schools, they had to pay £1 towards some charity or other. Bloody awful idea. Some of the families were in receipt of charity themselves.

Very very chilled at my children prep school. People cobble together whatever or borrow.

Whereas when they were at state primary… My word, the effort some went to!!!!

It has become very commercialised but it’s up to schools how they handle it. It can be done well, in an inclusive, accessible way that promotes reading or it can be done badly. Where it’s done badly it’s the schools fault, not WBDs fault.

At my children’s state primary they can go in own clothes or costume, no one cares if it’s tied to a book character - football kits Disney princesses and superheroes abound, it’s fine. Whatever gets them to school easiest.

Yanbu but I blame teachers! You are a rare exception.

I used to send mine in PE kit. I'm sick of being pressured to join in with this crap.

My son's school don't do the dressing up element. Whilst I'm grateful in a way I do feel a bit sad that he doesn't get to experience it.

My kids are just wearing clothes they already have. Most kids book characters are just normal children so you just get the right coloured t shirt and job done. Lots of costumes can be made very cheaply with paper and card or a few bits from the charity shop. It doesn't have to be a specially bought costume from Sainsbury's - I don't think they look any better anyway as they're so cheaply made.

I was always skint when my kids were small enough to dress up for WBD. I used to manage. I glued bits of felt to old clothes to make a Rainbow Fish, used several car boot sale costumes, a knights one for Sir Charlie Stinky Socks. It's a faff at times but it doesn't have to be expensive.
I think buying expensive outfits is silly, it's not a contest. Just a day for a bit of fun when frankly there are enough serious days in primary school due to excessive testing.
My kids have happy memories of WBDs.

In defence of teachers this is (in my experience) nearly always driven by the HT or DHT.

Although my daughter's school had a themed dress up day in mid Feb, WBD on 2nd March and another themed dress up on 10th march so it's getting a bit much!

That's assuming it comes down to money though. So many children are in time poor families or families with excessive mental loads/external pressures.

My children’s school focus on book and reading-related activities rather than costumes, but costumes are allowed for those who want to do them. I think that’s the right way round. The teachers have come up with some lovely things for them to do, the year sixes coming into reception to read their favourite books when they were younger is really sweet

The best ones I’ve seen is where the children come in wearing their pyjamas or onesies and spend the day reading and talking about books.

The worst was where the school decided on a theme (war, was one of them) to prevent kids coming in wearing Disney Princess dresses and superhero costumes. WBD for my son ended when they stopped letting him wear his Batman outfit.

People spend way too much unnecessarily, DDs primary school do a PTA costume sale the week before any of these kind of events, every costume is 50p and most of it comes back into the PTA the week after to be re-sold. Same for Xmas jumpers, children in need and everything else.

School also give the option of just not wearing uniform that day.

DD loves making her own costume out of stuff we already have, so this year she's going as a crayon from 'The day the crayons quit', her outfit is red trousers, red top, red party hat and she's made a wrapper out of an old towel with Crayola written on it.

It doesn't have to be a big expensive faff.

Oh I love WBD! I love coming up with the outfits and making / sourcing them and mine love dressing up. I think it’s brilliant.

Even my baby’s nursery is doing this! He has a little hat that’s a bear with ears on so I’ll dress him in brown and find a book with a bear in it. The donation is optional. Certainly not buying anything, I pick the book to fit the costume not the other way round but that only works when they’re little.

I’ve had years of WBD as a nanny, and I was always responsible for the costumes, most parents can’t be arsed. One school did a costume swap at the end of every school year for all the user nativity, book day costumes and whatever and that was great as you could always get something to use later on.

The dressing up is such nonsense. Only on mumsnet do I come across parents who put more thought into than "there's a harry potter costume on sale I'll buy that". From what I've seen it in no way encourages children to read - and as a child who loved reading I would have hated it (fortunately it wasn't a thing when I went to school).

My children’s school happily don't do dress up. They organise activities across the week to focus on characters in books and encourage them to read more. Feels a lot more fitting than fancy dress.

It's a real shame that so many schools just default to dress up. There are so many great activities that would be more fruitful in driving a love of reading.

Ours is just pyjamas, reading all day, with a competitive for each class for best photo at home reading in a strange place.

I hate it. My kid isn't interested in getting dressed up so it's like pulling teeth every year. I end up cajoling him which I hate. Then you get to school and half the boys have football strip for some reason.

I have no problem at all with the idea of a day promoting reading but I loathe the costumes. They seem to serve no purpose at all other than making mothers feel shit.

It's a no win situation for most parents: you're either judged for not having the money to buy a costumer or not having the time to make one. If you're on a low budget it makes you feel shit and if you work but don't have time it's another stupid bit of life admin which you have to fit in and then you feel shit because you haven't made the effort when the SAHMs have spent weeks preparing for it.

And most of the costumes have sod all to do with books. 90% of the kids at my DD's primary went as Marvel characters/

What I find irritating is that its just dress up day - Frozen is a film, not a book!

Tu has Jurassic World pyjamas in their world book day section - I bloody hope young children have NOT read Michael Crichton.....

I really really don’t care about the “it’s a film not a book” and football strip complaints. Who cares?

DD's school is pj day. Usually they say bring a book and teddy too. She loves it and cost nothing.

@Silverbook yanbu and thanks for this post. D'S is in special ed and his school\ professionals run my life enough as it is. DD used to be well into it so I always made an effort. I always put a lot of effort into extra mental load stuff. I felt the pressure as I often feel judged as a parent due DS issues and have a lot of mum guilt feeling I dont do enough for DD (I do but anxiety is horrible) I could do without it tbh ..

Both DC adore reading though. Total bookworms. So if it were about just reading it would be great.