Hey cHEwY gum gums, Happy Book Week!
I was browsing through a Supermarket catalogue and stumbled upon their Book Week celebration page, selling books and costumes. There were kids in Superheroes and Princess outfits, which I’d imagine would make any teacher-librarian cringe. I’ve been at Book Week visits where I’m talking to kids dressed as Batman, Ella from Frozen and the cheeky ones in Barcelona FC soccer jerseys because there are books about Leonie Messi. And yes I could spot the odd Wally here and there hehe.
But I’ve noticed a shift in the variety of BookWeek costumes being paraded around at schools. The revolution was led by the creative teachers and teacher-librarians who took the time out to make costumes that looked like normal characters on the cover. What do I mean by normal? Well, everyday people in contemporary stories, like mine. Suddenly, if you did your hair right and had a blue blazer, you could be Alice Miranda. Or if you wore glasses and had spiky hair, you could be Connor in Con-nerd. It’s been a life achievement unlocked to see kids and classes dress up as nerds or Thai cooks or waiters from Thai-riffic! The fan-service is much appreciated.
That’s the beauty of book characters, some of them are just like you and me. I always wanted to create characters that kids can relate to. I love the fact that you can wear a shirt with a cat on it and have a paintbrush to be Vee in Don’t Follow Vee. Author pals like Nat Ammore and Adrian Becks have detailed suggestions to become their book characters, and you don’t need to spend that much money, if any at all. Check out their Insta 🙂 So I love seeing kids dress up as cats, dogs, wicked teachers, basketballers…the main point is that they are celebrating books and books are in the spotlight.
I do feel for the kids who may be anxious about having to dress up. For those kids, I would recommend that you can just wear what you wanna wear and bring along the book that you love. You are a reader, a book lover and there are plenty of those in all kinds of books, including mine.
O.W
