picture of Detective Sleuth World Book Day outfit inspiration

World Book Day outfits you already have at home

World Book Day has crept up on me this year (It is Thursday 6th March for those of you who also haven't clocked it) and as with most years I feel a bit flustered trying to get something organised.

My children are a bit older now (10 and 8) and don't generally enjoy playing with dressing up clothes, so I refuse to go and spend over £20 on an outfit that will be worn once then put back in the wardrobe never to be worn again! So, this year I am trying to be a bit more creative.

The books my children are reading now have characters that don't necessarily have costumes, so I have been looking through our wardrobes and bookshelves and trying to develop some ideas we can work with.

World Book Day costumes you already have at home

The Midnight Gang by David Walliams

This is possibly my favourite dressing outfit choice and one we certainly have at home! The Midnight Gang is a fantastic book following some children who are in hospital with various illness or injuries and joins them on their midnight adventures around the hospital. As the children are in hospital beds they spend the whole of the time in their Pyjamas!

What you need for this outfit

Pyjamas
Bandages/plasters or anything else you can find in your first aid cabinet.

Additional Props you might want to add/make

You could try and make the injuries look more realistic by making big bandages or even making your own crutches!
Thinking of the adventures the children go on you could make some props to make their dreams come true
You could make a pretend box of chocolates to help send people to sleep.

Animalcolm by David Baddiel

We are big fans of the David Baddiel books in our house, they are great for both adult led story time and independent reading. They are really funny books and I think you could do as much or as little with this look as you wanted to make a great costume.

What you need to be Malcolm Bailey

Hooded jumper (The cover of the book shows a red hoody but I think any colour would be ok)
Jeans
Wellies (The cover shows green, but again I don't think you need to worry too much.

Additional props to elevate the outfit

In the book Malcolm changes into a variety of different animals and spends time in the character of each of them. The animals are tortoises, sheep, goats, cats, horses, a pig, a monkey and a chinchilla. To go the extra mile here you could try and add some of these animals to the outfit. Here are some ways you can do that:

Make your own facemasks - You could make a mask of some of these animals that your child could use throughout the day to pretend being the different animals. If you don't want to make your own masks you could buy some premade animal masks and use those.
If you have cuddly toys of any of these animals you could take some of these in with you.
If you have any t-shirts with any of the animals in the book you could wear this under your jumper.

Super Sleuth by David Walliams

Super Sleuth is one of David Walliams new books and it's one I am currently enjoying reading with my daughter. This is actually her choice of what she will be dressing up for this World Book day. We have looked at all of the pictures of Dilly (the main character) and think we can pull this off with what we already have in her wardrobe. We may have to substitute some of the colours for the various items but I will list the exact colours Dilly wears below.

What you need to be Dilly from Super Sleuth

Brown Shorts
Blue top
Yellow Jacket
Odd socks
Boots

Props to make the outfit more realistic

A toy dog (for Watson)
A satchel
Some glasses
A notebook
A magnifying glass

Your favourite footballer

Now, this is always a choice that causes some conflict. One of our teachers this year has actually banned children from dressing up as footballers, which I do understand as they aren't really book characters, but I think it's important to get children interested in books in reading in whatever way you can. We have a lot of football themed books at home, we also have a few football kits! If you have a football fan in your house this is a really easy option for you, which is sure to keep your child happy too!

What you need

A football kit

Extra Props you could use

Think about the footballer you are dressing up as and see if their is anyway you can go the extra mile to look like them. Can you style your child's hair like them? Or if they have tattoos can you get some transfer tattoos to put on?
An actual football probably won't go down all that well in the classroom, but maybe you could make some football themed props? Having a image of a football on some card, some red and yellow cards to pretend to send people off.