Last Minute Book Week Costumes

Are you in need of a last minute Book Week costume? Has Book Week crept up on you and left you with little time to prepare an outfit for your child? Like me, is putting something together at the eleventh hour a daunting prospect that you’re not quite sure you can pull off?

We’ve all been there, with the school calendar crammed to the brim with sporting and fundraising events, we’re not always ready for those special occasions that take a bit more preparation. But not to worry, I’m here to give you a hand. The aim of this post is to relieve your stress and give you some quick ideas of book characters your child can dress up as.

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Where to Get a Book

Last minute Book Week costumes also come with the added challenge of finding the book that goes with the outfit. If you don’t have the book you need on the shelf, head to your local independent bookshop, library or op shop (if you have time). Children’s librarians are the nicest humans and will always help you out. At a pinch, you can print out a cover of the book from the internet, or just go without.

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Use what you have at home.

If you’re scrambling for a last minute book week costume, chances are you don’t have time to dash to the shops. It’s easy to think you don’t have a book week costume at home, but when you get a little resourceful and have some simple book week character costumes in mind, hopefully you can find what you need in your kids wardrobe or your craft cupboard. If not, there are also some quick and nifty printable suggestions here:

Printable animal masks from Twinkl and ninja and super hero masks. Twinkl is a website educators use all the time, but you can sign up for a free 30-day trail and decide after that whether it is still useful to you. If you go with the ninja outfit dress your child in black from head to toe to match. Book suggestions: Ninja Ninja Never Stop by Todd Tuell, My Nanna is a Ninja by Damon Young Illustrated by Peter Carnavas.

Another idea is to do ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’ by dressing your child in a yellow shirt and pinning the fish to the shirt. This is from Homemadeforelle They can wear all yellow or something red and blue as leggings, pants or shorts.

With a white shirt and a yellow and blue marker you can recreate the cover of Press Here by Herve Tullet. With a white shirt and a black marker you can recreate The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak. If you have a pink marker and a white shirt you can create Little Miss Messy by Roger Hargreaves. (See this idea from PaintSewGlueChew)

There are also some ideas on my pinterest board including this blog post from Children’s Books Daily and a printable for Macca the Alpaca and Al from Alpacas with Maracas thanks to Matt Cosgrove. Both Megan and Matt are amazing Aussies who help kids fall in love with reading, one as a teacher librarian and author and the other as a fabulous author/illustrator.

If you have an old sheet or oversized towel you have everything you need to make a cape. Characters with capes include:

1. Will from Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagon
2. Quinn from The Map Maker Chronicles by A.L Tait
3. Characters from Harry Potter by J.K Rowling
4. Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkein
5. Little Red Riding Hood

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Overalls and an Animal Soft Toy

Fern from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White – overalls and a soft toy pig. Throw in a spider somewhere if you can.

Annie from Runt by Craig Silvey- overalls and a soft toy dog. Add a tool belt or tools poking out of her pockets if you can.

Old MacDonald had a Farm – many options of animal soft toys could be added to a flannelette shirt, jeans and boots.

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Characters who wear Jeans

Kensy and Max by Jacqueline Harvey

Alex and Conner Bailey from The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer

Gwen from Wolf Girl series by Anh Do

Where’s Wally by Martin Hardford

Arthur from the Arthur series by Marc Brown

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Fairies and Princesses

Do you have a set of fairy wings hiding at the bottom of your dress up box? There are a plethora of fairy books out there, with an amazing array of outfits to match those wings. For Cherry the Party Fairy by Daisy Meadows we used a Christmas dress as the red tutu and threw a pink shirt over it. We also had the wand in our dress-up box.

The Rainbow Fairy series by Daisy Meadows has over fifty books with a different fairy on each cover. Check them out here at Toppsta

If you can whip up a homemade crown for a prince, king, princess or queen character there are many books to choose from including King Jack and the Dragon, King Arthur and the King of Kindergarten. An 4 litre ice cream container can be turned into a crown or a knights helmet. If you cover it in alfoil it can be a robots head or an astronauts helmet.

Famous literary princesses include the Princess in Black by Dale and Shannon Hale, The Fix-It Princess by Janeen Brien, The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch and Princess Rose from my book ‘Stories of Imagination: A Collection of Stories and Poems’ by Lynelle Kendall.

Last Minute Book Week Costumes – Sporting Uniforms

A great idea for a last minute Book Week costume is to pull out a sports uniform that you already have.

Here are some books that feature sporting stars:

Soccer – Tiny Timmy Series by Tim Cahill, Sam Kerr Book Series,

Cricket – Mighty Mitch by Mitchell Starc or Big Bash League Book, Cricket, I Just Love It by Alistair Nicholson

Basketball – Game Day series by Patty Mills

Tennis – Little Ash series by Ash Barty

Check out this complete list of Sport in Fiction for Australian Kids from The Little Bookroom, a fantastic bookshop in Melbourne, for more sporting inspired ideas, including AFL.

Hopefully you’ve found some ideas and inspiration on this list.