To think this is ridiculous for world book day??

[Applescruffle]

Not the day but some of the ridiculous costumes. It's supposed to be a celebration of books and authors but aalli keep seeing every year is kids in superhero costumes or a character from their favourite film.
There's so many characters to choose from, why can't they choose an actual book? Something written as a book that the child has read and enjoyed.
I've just seen a costume that really takes the biscuit. A young, primary aged child dressed as.... Del boy. Yep, Del boy from only fools and horses.
Come on!!
I'm sure it's very funny and clever but it's not only a sitcom and very much not a book, it's an adult sitcom and very much not for kids.

As a book lover and children's author, I just find it a bit sad.

My dd is dressing up as Mirabel from Encanto and has the book. There is a cost of living crisis and this is a costume she already owns. School have suggested kids wear comfy clothes and costumes are optional. It's still cold, wet and windy where we are and ds has opted for regular clothes.

It’s ridiculous. DS and I are both avid readers. He was going to go as a ninja from a book I have yet to decide on. Now we’ve been told they also have to dress up as a character from Harry Potter on 27th as that’s the learning theme this term.

@MinnieMountain when my daughter was at primary there was one year where a week before World Book Day the school announced the theme was Shakespeare and they wanted the children to dress up as a Shakespeare character.
A lot of parents (and children) were upset because they had already made or bought their costumes so a group of us from the PTA went and talked to the head and the school decided that the children could dress as a Shakespeare character or another character of their choice.
Maybe try that at your school.
Or send him as a ninja saying you personally have never read the books and he told you there was a ninja scene in it 😂
(at my daughter's school there were several families who would have refused to do anything connected with Harry Potter due to their Christian beliefs - I am surprised that's the theme)
Edit : sorry just read that the Harry Potter thing is an extra day. I'd just make a cardboard witches hat and send in regular uniform 😂

Funnily enough @Needmorelego DS goes to a C of E school (we’re atheist but it’s our catchment school), and his class teacher is catholic. Harry Potter doesn’t seem to be a problem.

To be fair, they do have this ridiculous dress up for the theme thing every term. We could just have done with more warning to re-use the costume.

Ohh, MIL has a witches hat…

Best one I ever did, as one of those mothers without a creative bone or any wish to get over involved in much school wise(!) was sent our son in his pyjamas and say he was Michael from Peter Pan. The arty farty parents thought it was amazing 😄😄

Is it really something to get worked up about though? There will always be parents with more time / who prioritise different events. Also, not entirely sure it's the worst thing in the world the child went as Del Boy from OFAH I'm sure a lot of children saw the comedy before being adults don't think it's going to have that bad an impact on them.

I think the whole thing is nonsense. It should be about reading. Have a day where the kids can read books all day or try writing a story or drawing the characters, talk about what they might have done differently if they wrote the stories. Asit is currently its just a bloody dress up day where no matter how hard your kid tries to make a costume some other wanker parent has decided to spend a small fortune buying a fancy smanshy costume which often does not relate to a physical book and makes those that have really tried or cannot afford a costume feel shit. Then to top it all off theres a book fair needing around a tenner where the kids get to chose a book and my child came out along with the vast majority of others with stupid pencil toppers, sparkly pens and crappy overpriced notebooks.

I complained about the superheroes to my husband who promptly told me that he grew up reading comic BOOKS and that if it gets children reading then that's a good thing.

Absolutely changed my view.

Since when was Only Fools and Horses an “adult” show, it was a family sitcom with famously clean jokes and enjoyed by everyone. It wasn’t even on after the watershed.

My child is 2 and world book day at nursery has been sprung on me.

Her favourite book is a monster book. I am not getting a monster costume, she will go in her wonder woman fancy dress as that is what we have in the house.

@Whowhatwherewhenwhy1 I volunteered to run the Scholastic Book Fair one year (well technically "help" but I ended up on my own).
I kinda hid the tray of stationary bits and those plastic poking fingers they always have behind one of the stands 😂
A few kids were asking for the fingers but I said something like "nah you don't want one of those they're naff" which I could get away with saying because I wasn't actually staff.

Thankfully one has gone to secondary now (where there's NO WAY they'd risk letting Y7 dress up as random words or they'd get a lot of poo and slightly immaturely rude words) and it's the last year of this nonsense for DD2... who has picked a normal child from a story book and gone in whatever she fancied for the last few years but this year I suspect will be rocking one of the 9 Pikachu hats she has and going in as a Pokemon and I do not give a shit - both my kids are avid readers with reading ages in the high teens (DD1's on-admission to secondary reading test scored her at adult level), and neither of them particularly care much about WBD apart from the book voucher.

As an ex-teacher - I don't care if kids grow up reading the back of the cereal box - I just care that they grow up reading and there are lots of homes where there's not the access to books you might expect, and if The Works or cheap Disney princess books from the supermarket get the kids reading - so be it (plus I really quite like The Works).

At my DDs school they are doing something different for world book day this year. The theme is ‘cosy up with a book’ so they can go in their comfy clothes/pjs. I think mainly due to the cost of living so parents don’t feel pressured to go out and buy a costume that they might only wear once

Imagine being annoyed that a kids dressed up as Dell Boy….🤣🤣🤣

ours did that last year, said they wanted to celebrate bedtime stories so come in with your PJs and your favourite bedtime book.

The fucking drama from the parents and specifically the PTA was insane. How dare they not have a costume competition so their little darling could dress up?

Schools are dammed if they do, dammed if they dont.

This year, the school is having a costume competition. If you don't want to go in costume, you have to wear school uniform which I think is really shitty. I've ended up buying her a tshirt from etsy with the logo of her favourite book on it, because the character is just a normal school girl

But what pisses me off is that £10 that I spent on a tshirt could have been spent buying two more books from the series.

Retired teacher here. That sounds absolutely brilliant

If your school insists on character from book we did Alice in Wonderland. Everyday dress, toy rabbit, large cookie from Tesco's with Eat Me written on it, small bottle with Drink Me on label. Can't remember if we did a watch for the rabbit. Every teacher knew who she was. Sadly none of the kids recognised the character but you'll be in with all the teachers

Edit: We wrote the words on the cookie with icing, it didn't come like that from Tesco's

I think it's a bit ridiculous to be 'disapproving' of children's costumes. Dress up has nothing to do with actual reading and I'd much prefer the latter was the focus.

Perfectly understandable that parents want to go for something easy /they have already. It's no reflection at all on how interested the child is in reading.

Absolute genius

I have to stand up for all those of us whose books are in The Works or supermarkets. These books are exactly the same as the books you buy in any bookshop - publishers do a 'deal' with The Works or supermarkets to stock the books. In no way are they 'badly written', they are just normal paperbacks.

There's a perfectly fine selection of books in The Works. Have people slagging it off ever actually been there?

The dumbarse snobbery on this thread is quite something 🫠

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