World Book Day panic

[EnglishHamlet]

Please help!
12 year old boy at secondary school.
School announced on Monday that they want kids to dress up as book characters for World Book Day.
I thought WBD was on Friday so I was planning to sort this out tomorrow, as I have the day off work.
To my horror, I've literally just found out they have to go in dressed up tomorrow!!! DS's school are doing WBD tomorrow!!!
Help!
What on earth can I dress DS as?
To make it more complicated, he now wants a 'cool' look, understated, low key, as he says he'd get laughed out of secondary school if he went in dressed as Harry Potter.
It's 8pm, I'm tired, and I'm really panicking!

Have you met many 12 year old boys?

White t-shirt, a sharpie and write 'For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn'. It is the shortest book in the world by Ernest Hemingway.

Adrian Mole. Simple!

You could do a cardboard mask? Here are some Diary of a Wimpy kid ones. But works well for any animated/comic style character.

Are you absolutely SURE everyone is going to be dressed up? I mean I know the email says to. But are his mates actually dressing up? Or just going in mufti?

This was my back up if football kit was allowed.

Also WBD in secondary school - wtf?

Jeans and a tshirt and pick a character to say he is. Odd that secondary are doing this

All black clothes preferably with a black hoody or piece of black material as a cape/cloak.

Instant current 3rd year* or above, student of the Guild of Assassins - one of the many guilds in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.
(*only in 3rd year are they allowed to abandon the hellish uniform and take up wearing all black)

If he wants to go for it, make a small card shield as per link. Get him to read link contents, it's a good potted history of the assassins guild.

That way if this turns into they have to write something about their character, he wont get caught short.

https://wiki.lspace.org/Assassins%27_Guild

How very splendid of your DDs. Here's a star 🌟 and a medal 🥇

😳

Cardboard mask for Dogman

Bart Simpson if you have yellow face paints?

Diary of a wimpy kid - black bag, white T-shirt, black shorts

Footballer or other sports star?

Good heavens! I didn't realise they did this in secondary school too! Are they not too old?!

My teen is Y10 and her school is doing it. She's reluctantly going as a Youtuber who's written* a novel.

*Had it ghost-written for them.

I'd just send him in normal clothes; I'm a muggle, Harry Potter out of school clothes, Tom Gates, Percy Jackson (just carry a pen to be your pen-sword). He'll likely find that not many people take part in it.

What about Alex Rider?

Honestly don't give it any head space and just send him in his own clothes, he doesn't need to be anything. No one will care or ask who he is supposed to be and I'd be bloody amazed if anyone at secondary school wore an actual costume it's very unusual for KS2 to dress up in most schools let alone kids at secondary. 100% they will all be in their own clothes or football kit.

Ritchie Tozier (or one of the other teenagers) from IT by Stephen King with a sign saying 'I hate clowns".

Normal clothes then pick a male character from a teen book that's been turned into a modern tv show/film.

• Thirteen reasons why
• Nick and norahs infinite playlist
• shadowhunters (from the mortal instruments series)

If he has blue jeans, a red hoodie and some zombie makeup he could be the main character from Warm Bodies

My son went as The Invisible Man at that age. Super easy - normal clothes, gloves, hat, sunglasses, thin scarf to cover his face.

(edited to add - this was just after lockdown so all windows were open and the school was freezing! Might be a bit sweaty now I guess!)

Yes! Could even write Löded Diper on the t shirt.

Don't put in too much effort unless he really enjoys drawing attention to himself as kids that age will go with the bare minimum. Jeans and t-shirt and say he's a Muggle, Percy Jackson is normal clothes and a pen , peeta hunger games normal clothes

Go as a dictionary. Stick some words on him, or write them in a white t shirt

Diary of a wimpy kid?

Have you asked him what he wants to dress up as...my 7 year old has strong views on what she is wearing...at 12 I think they have similar