Hey, it’s Book Week this week. Or, as I like to call it, Super Creative And Organised Mums Make The Rest Of Us Feel Inferior Week. It’s an annual event.
My Facebook feed is getting scary. People’s kids are marching off to school all dressed up as real book characters. The green sheep from Where Is The Green Sheep?. Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat In The Hat. These mothers have been been sitting at sewing machines. They’ve put in serious hours.
In one Facebook group, there’s a mum offering to pay someone to make a costume for her child. Others are swapping tips on where to buy black-and-white striped leggings, or how to colour hair blue.
People are murmuring about being newbies and the pressure of it all. Yes, it’s a competition. And I’m a big-time loser.
I don't even sew buttons back on. So how am I supposed to make a costume? Where am I supposed to find the time? I fill my days doing other things like... gosh, I don't know, working, looking after my kids, and maybe READING BOOKS TO THEM.
I am not alone here. I made a rushed trip to the local discount store on the weekend, and the aisle with dress-up costumes was starting to look empty. Capes and wings had been pulled out of plastic bags. Masks were being trampled underfoot. Other parents like me stood desperately scanning the shelves, trying to work out how they could make one of these work as a Book Week costume.
I could sense the growing panic.
Um, Elsa? Frozen was based on a highly acclaimed novel, wasn't it? No? Okay, maybe a pirate? There must be heaps of books about pirates. But we don't have any at home, do we? Maybe I could buy one from the book section? What the hell am I thinking? How much am I going to shell out here? Maybe my kid could chuck a sickie that day?
Some schools are cracking down on children turning up to the Book Week parade dressed as superheroes or princesses. But, you know, I don't see any Geronimo Stilton or Selby the talking dog costumes on sale at the shopping centre near me. Give us non-crafty parents a break.
My daughter went as Geronimo Stilton last year, using bits and pieces we found around the house. She didn't look like a well-dressed mouse, she looked like an impoverished child who had been rummaging around in a secondhand clothing bin.
This year, my son told me he wanted to go as Superman. (Yes, Superman is a book. Or a comic. Whatever.) I couldn't find a Superman costume, but at a two-dollar shop, I found a generic superhero costume. It was way better than anything I could have made. My son got excited when he put it on, and immediately began running up and down the hallway, rescuing toy cats from life-threatening situations. It sparked off his imagination. It didn't matter if it was a character from a book or a comic or a movie. Dressing up is fun.
Let's be totally real here. Kids don't make these costumes themselves. Their parents do. Are the kids really getting anything out of the Book Week parade? Or is it their parents who are?
TAP on the image below to scroll through baby names inspired by books. Post continues after the gallery.
For all the parents whose kids turn up to school this week wearing store-bought superhero or princess costumes, or something scrappy thrown together at the last minute, or no costume at all, there's really only one question. Does your kid love reading? Then you're a winner, whether you feel like one in Book Week or not.
What is your kid dressing up as for Book Week?