Children's Book Character Costumes

Lots of schools hold events to promote literacy and reading where the children must arrive dressed in the costume of their favourite children's book character. Over the years I have seen hundreds of children's book character costumes. Here are some of the most successful ideas.

The most popular choice seems to be to dress as a character from books by Roald Dahl. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl offers lots of scope for finding a great book character costumes, as does Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka), The Twits and The BFG.

In recent years, lots of children have turned up in Harry Potter costumes, but it is the other Harry Potter characters that end up inspiring the best fancy dress costumes. I've loved the Hagrid costumes and the Severus Snape costumes that children have worn to 'dress as your favourite children's book character' days.

Other great children's book character costumes have included: Mildred from the Worst Witch stories, Alex Rider from the children's books by Anthony Horowitz, Kensuke from the Michael Morpurgo book Kensuke's Kingdom, Horrid Henry from the children's books by Francesca Simon, and lots of different children's book characters from books by Enid Blyton and Beatrix Potter.

It is usually the children who dress as an obscure character that get the most out of the children's book character costume days. Not only are they dressing up as a character from a children's book that they love, but they are getting the chance to tell others about the book when they are responding to questions about their fancy dress costume. I'm really looking forward to seeing the children's book character costumes at future events.

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