It’s Book Week 2020!
This week was Children’s Book Week, which I thought had been cancelled due to you-know-what, but it was merely postponed.
The theme this year was Curious Creatures, Wild Minds, and children dress up as a book character they like, or failing that whatever’s handy in the dress-ups box.
I do acknowledge that some parents dread dress ups and finding costumes, and perhaps feel a bit of pressure, but I have to say Book Week is where I shine! Not that we were organised until the very day before, but we did have a plan.
This year my nine year old went as Carmen Sandiego (who I kept calling Carmen Miranda by mistake) and my eleven year old was Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (she hasn’t actually read the book or seen the movie apart from trailers; we told her it was a bit violent and to wait a few years. However, everyone else in her class seems to have.)
Carmen Sandiego borrowed my red trench coat, gloves and earrings. We found a walkie talkie in the toy box and I made a hat based on the free hat pattern on this website. To my delight, as I dropped her off at school we heard a boy say Hey, that’s Carmen Sandiego! Whew!
Katniss Everdeen was an easy costume; we had all the bits at home except the parka which I got from the op shop. Her uncle very kindly 3D-printed her a mockingjay brooch.
So apart from making a hat I did not have to do very much!
The school had a costume parade on the tennis courts, and since it was outdoors we parents were allowed to stay and watch, as long as we socially distanced. Having Book Week in October has freed-up costume choices – usually it takes place in August which is still chilly in the Clare Valley, when it’s prudent to be a character who wears a coat etc, rather than Elsa from Frozen, or you end up frozen.
This is the last year of having two girls for Book Week. There’s two years left with just one girl, and then I guess I’ll be blogging about prom dresses.
Cheers!
PS – Here are some costumes from previous years. I had fun digging out these photos and didn’t realise how much costume recycling happened.
Their capes are the ones in the free cape pattern post on this website.
The floral Queen Susan dress got repurposed here.
Miraculous Ladybug wore the costume I made for this fancy dress party.
The green Queen Susan dress was used for this unidentified princess (was it Elsa?).
The Miraculous Ladybug catsuit was de-spotted and used for Violet.
(Incidentally, the rubber boots I spray painted for the doomed Lucky Prescott costume are still sitting in the laundry drying. Still slightly tacky, but give them another year and they’ll be fine, however, I suspect her feet are too big for them now.)