Book Week

Mothers are staring at cardboard boxes wondering how they can help their child transform into a rainbow fish. Fathers are corralling children down the aisles of ...

I read novels on my phone, which I love, as I can read in bed with the light off. He was pursued by a gang of younger Potter fans with their house colours on, yelling out to him in role and giggling when he responded gruffly as Snape. Fathers are corralling children down the aisles of Spotlight trying to find the costume section. It’s a small action, but anything you can to do help establish a culture of reading in the family helps establish reading for pleasure as a normalised behaviour. Do we have an old white dress my niece could borrow for a Book Week costume for school? In the scramble for costumes, which can add to the work of already stressed parents and carers, the point of Book Week – for kids to fall in love with reading – can get lost.

From athletic autobiographies to the all-encompassing witch's hat, here are six ways to sail through Book Week 2022 without resorting to an Elsa costume.

A bit of judicious eyeliner will make a very good nose and whiskers – the foundation for so many storybook animals. When you wear a witch’s hat, you are dressed up. For I was a wardrobe – from The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. For advanced parents, you might consider zip-tying the box to a bike helmet for security. Do you have face paint in the house? Perhaps you can deck your child out entirely in grey, paint their face grey and – huzzah! Take the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. And then, one year, there was a glitch in the system. Perhaps you have already hand-crafted a whole-head Gruffalo mask from papier-mache and are just mixing the perfect purple for the custom-made prickles down the back of the body suit which you have designed and sewn for your child? You’ll need an eye mask and a bit of black fabric or paper as a cape. My mother was a bit of a Book Week or Multicultural Week pro. Your child is now Evonne Goolagong Cawley or Serena Williams (foil around a paper – or plastic – plate will do very well for a Wimbledon trophy …

It's hot glue gun heaven - or hell, depending on your outlook.

And then you remember there's more than one in the brood. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: You'll find my byline on breaking news, live blogs and anything in between. It's hot glue gun heaven - or hell, depending on your outlook - but it's a rite of passage in the name of celebrating books and the wild and wonderful characters that are found between the pages. There's a reason "last minute book week costumes" was second and rising in in the Google Trends list of queries on Sunday. There's a sprinkle of joy about to descend on the lives of little ones across Wagga and the Riverina this week.

There is a big pile of tulle skirts and novelty headbands sitting in my hallway, on top of a pile of books. This is all sitting next to the pile of clean ...

This one is from our amazing daycare centre director and was helpfully contained in the email we got two weeks ago, that I clearly did not read properly, to make it easy on people like me. We have a surplus of unicorn related paraphernalia at my house, so this is what I put my four-year-old AND my 18-month-old into this morning (although by the time we got to daycare the little one had lost her horn somewhere so was actually just wearing pink. In that time I've covered breaking news, education, politics, urban affairs, council, environment, data journalism and development news. just be like Jesse at the end and wear a red top and jeans. Haven't actually done this one and requires some craft which I don't love. These are all related to actual books too, because I am a book tragic and it gives me the s--ts when people wear movie-related costumes on Book Week. Wear shoes, socks from the local shops, skirt that won't show the dirt, sweater for when the weather gets wetter, coat you can wear on a boat, mittens softer than kittens etc. I'm a writer, and I want my children to love books and reading as much as me. This year my one-year-old will be wearing a ladybird costume and I have happened upon a hand-me-down top that has ladybirds on it, so I don't even need the dots. The first time I did this, I found some sticky velcro dots in our third drawer down which made my daughter prone to getting awkwardly stuck together, but it was fine. (Six costumes, actually, because I have two kids that each attend three days of daycare). This is all sitting next to the pile of clean everyday clothing that hasn't quite made it into bedrooms yet.

It's the week of the year that parents try and get ready for but then panic about. That's right, strap in because it's Book Week and costumes need to be ...