Right costume, wrong day
A few years ago my son’s school organised a World Book Day in which pupils were asked to turn up in costume. Two kids turned up wearing full Viking outfits, complete with plastic axes and horned helmets. They looked brilliant. Only trouble was their parents had got the day wrong: they turned up in costume the day before the actual event, and as they had been dropped off by taxi, they had to spend the first part of the day in costume while their fellow pupils were in normal school uniform.
Phil Jones, Surrey
Covid-secure costume
In March 2020, just before the UK went into lockdown, I was anxious about whether to send my son to nursery when he excitedly reminded me that it was World Book Day. Thankfully he had been reading Silly Mr Wolf who had a tendency to place a paper bag on his head. Dressed in a bumbled together outfit – with Covid protection in the form of a paper bag – off he went.
Imogen Johnson, Sheffield
Cruella de Tall
I went as a red-gloved Cruella de Vil, at age 13 in 2009, alongside a group of dalmatian friends whose growth spurts were yet to arrive. I was six feet tall, as I did my growing early, and the resultant photo haunts me to this day. Ten years later, giving a presentation at my former school about careers in publishing, I put the Cruella photo up on screen in the hope that it would endear me to the teenagers and possibly get a laugh. The picture was met with deathly silence so I rushed the rest of the presentation and fled.
Natalie Stuart, London
The very hungry sleeping bag
Two years ago, my daughter, then 14, put on social media that she was coming to school as the Very Hungry Caterpillar, with a request for people to spend the day approaching her with fruit. She then went to school in a sleeping bag, and went around the corridors all day repeatedly eating fruit others gave her!
Judith Marlow, Leeds
Beaker to the rescue
When I was nine I really wanted to go to school as Hermione Granger, and asked my mum to curl my hair for me. She decided to rag my hair instead and when I took it out in the morning my hair was bigger than a shrubbery! I tried to brush it out but it didn’t work, I thought it would be OK though as Hermione’s hair in the books was big. That’s when my baby brother threw up on my jacket so the outfit was ruined and I had to scramble last minute to put together a costume. I ended up giving up on my magical costume and going as Tracy Beaker.
JT Taylor, Peterborough
