The arrival of World Book Day 2024 offers children a chance to celebrate their favourite characters, and adults a chance to celebrate the joy of reading
I’ve just been chatting with my granddaughter, Daisy. She’s excited and wanted to share her ideas with me for her costume for World Book Day 2024.
I’ve seen the start of her costume and I’m looking forward to seeing her in her costume on March 7th.
Daisy isn’t the kind of child who wants to wear costumes for all of her imaginary play, but she does love dressing up as characters from her favourite books.
As a toddler, Daisy was developing an interest in books and the pictures in the book and she dressed as The Hungry Caterpillar from Eric Carle’s evergreen storybook, for her first World Book Day.
The following year, Daisy was beginning to follow stories and was starting some roleplay, copying her favourite character from a book. That year, she rode her hobby horse as the Highway Rat from Julia Donaldson’s recent classic.
The next year, Daisy became Sophie and invited her tiger to tea, just like in Judith Kerr’s famous book. I remember that year we had many tea parties with her little tiger, in her play kitchen.
When Daisy was the Ladybird from What the Ladybird Heard (or to be precise, What the Ladybird Heard Next) her role play became more physical – she practised her ladybird flying techniques in the park, flapping her net wings.
That choice was again inspired by a Julia Donaldson story, as was the following year’s outfit.
Tabby McTat was such a favourite book with Daisy and we read it so regularly that we were all becoming word perfect with that story, so it was an obvious choice for Daisy to want to be Samuel Sprat.
She enjoyed practising her singing for that role. Daisy wanted to be involved in making the Samuel Sprat costume, just as she did when she was the Fantastic Mr Fox on Roald Dahl Story Day, helping to make the ears (on her hairband) and creating the different tails.
Each year, Daisy has selected one of her favourite stories and a character from that story to which she can easily relate. Once Daisy puts on the costume, we see her adopt the mannerisms of the character. Her imagination takes over and she even changes her voice to match her idea of the character!
The World Book Day 2024 theme will celebrate the fact that children are more likely to enjoy reading when their choices are championed and we make reading fun.
Not every child will want to dress up as a story character on March 7th and that should be respected. World Book Day aims to encourage all children to read and to celebrate their reading and enjoyment of books.
The event doesn’t just focus on storybooks (fiction) and if a child prefers non-fiction books and doesn’t enjoy dressing up to the extent that Daisy does, they could focus on props that link to their interests – or they could make badges to reflect their reading and their favourite books.
Granny Smith says…
You don’t need to buy a costume for a child to dress up in on World Book Day, but if you’re looking for inspiration under pressure, there are some easy ideas on parenting sites, and the World Book Day site also has a special page for parents, among a plethora of other resources!
Granny Smith's Diary 