World Book Day – Missing the point?
Today all over the country children went into school dressed up to celebrate World Book Day. I have watched this day unfold over social media for the last couple of years and have seen parents plan, with dedication, their children’s outfits.
World Book Day celebrates the wonder of reading, books and authors with usually a week or so of events for the week around World Book Day and then a day of dressing up and fun for children everywhere. World Book Day was created by UNESCO and is a worldwide celebration of books and reading which is marked in over 100 countries all over the world. To put it bluntly, it’s quite a big thing.
At a time when children across the UK often spend a chunk of their day watching TV and movies it is great to get them interested in books, to read a bedtime story and to turn the TV off for a while. For me this celebration is something that I can imagine embracing with LP and Little Man as years go by, planning their outfits and grabbing the opportunity to read new books and find out about new authors.
But, today, across social media I saw a huge divide in World Book Day costumes. There were a few parents who had spent time creating costumes that their children would love, of characters that their children had read about and enjoyed, characters that the children wanted to be and characters that the children proudly dressed up as this morning – holding the relevant book and having their picture taken out the front of their houses before heading off to school for World Book Day fun.
Then there were the other children. The majority who were in a superhero costume or yet another Elsa dress. The ones dressed as characters that they had only seen on the big screen, ones where they knew the cartoons they’d seen religiously, ones they had learnt the songs from with the help of the TV and ones that they’d only read about in books that had were published after the movies were a success – or ones that were once comic books that the children are not even aware of.
One day in a whole year is dedicated to the wonder of books and reading and I cannot be alone in feeling saddened that children are going to school dressed as characters from movies and not characters from the books they love. They could dress up as Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter, a Dr Seuss character, the Gruffalo, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, any of the Mr Men & Little Miss characters or any of the other wonderful characters that were created in the minds of great authors and immortalised in the pages of a book.
World Book Day is just that. A day. But a day celebrated by a big part of the world and one that I would love to see kids understanding, embracing and celebrating by reading a new book – not by going home and watching a movie.
Well said. I found it really sad this morning that none of Jacob’s friends had heard of his character – The Tin Soldier. Gemma dressed as Puss in Boots – another classic in my mind. I much prefer the ‘real’ costumes to the Elsa dresses!
Completely agree! O doesn’t go to nursery today, so didn’t dress up, but there are so many characters from books that he loves, which he could dress up as. We’ll definitely be dressing up in the future! 🙂 x
I thoroughly agree with you. My 4 year old daughter went as the butterfly from monkey puzzle. She had a homemade/stitched by hand costume that took longer to make than what she wore it and she was very proud and excited to wear. She was the only one in her class with homemade and only a handful from a book not film/TV .
Charlies school is having it TOMORROW – you know when it’s not even World Book Day?! I give up!!!
*whispers* F went as a teenage mutant hero turtle.
A combination of time, money (mostly time) the school telling us 2 days before!!
We read ALL the time though so it’s not a reflection on that, plus 4 year olds are hard – they all just want to be Elsa or Batman and it’s hard to negotiate 😉 x
I agree! Books are wonderful and too few people embrace them. It should be about the books your children love and not the tv shows they watch. Although I have to say I’m not sure how good I am going to be at the whole costume making thing when our time comes!
thank goodness it’s not just me and my pregnancy hormones that got SO angry at all the posts today. It is so sad that children didn’t want to go dressed as a book character, I would have loved this as a kid! If it’s still going when indiana is bigger she will be doing it the way it’s supposed to.. Even if it means creating something haha xx
I totally agree too. I didn’t dress Toby up for nursery, although I’ll be happy to when he’s a bit older. It’ll definitely be a character from a book though and not someone from a Disney film!
So glad you’ve posted on this, it was something that was annoying me yesterday too!! Whats happened to tradition?? I saw alot of Elsa and Anna’s posted on my facebook feed and my eye rolling became to much! Give me a gruffalo, a stick man, a witch on a broom or even a cinderella (if one needs to be a princess!!) I feel your pain
It’s a tricky one. Last year my son went as Cat in the Hat, but most boys in his year were superheroes. He was too little to feel ‘different’ (still in the school nursery at that stage), but as he gets older, I suspect he might want to join in with the rest of the boys and dress as a fighting superhero….I feel a bit sad about it, but luckily his school postponed WBD till the summer so I don’t have to worry about it for a while.
I couldn’t agree more. What a great post. Oscar went in dressed as Where’s Wally. He looked very cute xx
I saw, he looks fantastic! x
I read your blog post with great interest. I am a children’s author and love it when children really get into the language of books, exploring characters and plots with enthusiasm.
Like you, I am bemused by the fact that some parents are happy to stick their child in a ready-made costume related to a film or TV character. That said, I have worked in TV and appreciate that there is a cross-over between books and movies.
TV or Film tie-ins will be created to maximise sales and generate exposure. My daughter has an Elsa dress and several ‘Frozen’ themed books. Not great literature but the books do engage(ish) and might be a doorway into encouraging ‘free reading’.
My hope is that World Book Day celebrates Book characters from all periods, where parents show children the books that made them smile and laugh and cry. I share countless ‘favourite’ picture books with my daughter. World Book Day is there to encourage a bond with the written word.
Though perhaps we are being too sensitive by ruling out inspiration from Movies and TV? A hankering for the traditional titles may not be what motivates the wee ones these days.
Maybe parents just need to relax a little and go with the flow – then jump on the back of whatever it is that motivates their child – so that after a child has read ‘Frozen’ and gone to school dressed up as Elsa or Olaf the she or he is encouraged to read a really engaging book at home. Just a thought.
Thank you. I really appreciate how balanced your views are. There is no wrong way to get interested in books.
I couldn’t agree more with this post. This was my first world book day (my son is only 2 and started pre-school last year). He went as the Gruffalo – a really easy costume considering I picked up a reduced Gruffalo hoody in the Debenhams sale a few weeks ago! Most of the other kids went as things from Toy Story or Frozen and although I can understand the logic of putting them in what are probably their easiest and favourite costumes, it does seem to be missing the point of world BOOK day a little. Especially when there are so many lovely characters out there which are easily achievable. I read another blog post today about kids dressing up as Zoella! Barmy!
Just stumbled across this and am appalled at how judgmental this post (and especially the comments) were. It’s nice to see how many perfect mummies have the time, energy, money, and talent to make costumes for their book loving darlings. And how horrible the mothers who send them in store bought costumes are.
While I understand the point you’re trying to make (the focus should be on books), the fact is that these characters do have books associated with them. My daughter has book adaptations of Frozen, Sofia the First, original Disney Christmas stories set after the movies, Batman, and the Avengers, along with classic children’s books and some fun new ones. If she decides she wants to be Elsa or Batman, I’m not making an issue about it. Because she’s read and enjoyed books featuring those characters (in fact, she knows these characters primarily through the books, not the movies or TV shows). So don’t assume the child has not read something just because they’re in a mass produced costume. That’s snobbery of the highest order that doesn’t fit with the wonderfully helpful and supportive blog posts I’m used to seeing here.
This year, I think my 3 year old daughter wants to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d love her to have a handmade costume, but I don’t know if it will happen. I work full time (8-6) at a day nursery, so I don’t have the time to spend at the sewing machine. And I have recently broken my elbow, so I’m physically not able to even if I wanted. It’s nice to know there could be mothers judging me for not meeting outrageously high Pinterest standards on a day that should be FUN FOR THE CHILDREN! That is how World Book Day is missing the point, and it is sad to see how many are falling into that trap.