Book Week 2017

If the internet is anything to go by, book week dress up days seem to cause division among parents. Some parents are as enthusiastic as their children and embrace the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities with paper mache and a hot melt glue gun, while others feel it is just one more unnecessary demand on their already limited time.

I've certainly found myself questioning my life choices when I was sitting at a sewing machine in the small hours of the morning, carefully stitching a cloak so my daughter could dress as a Ranger's Apprentice, but the look of joy on her face when she wore it to school made it all worthwhile. The really amazing part of the whole experience, though, is the interaction and enthusiasm for literature that it initiates. Each year, during book week, the whole school seems abuzz with conversations about favourite books, shared reading experiences and with reading the works of favourite authors. The conversations aren't only between children. Parents talk with each other's children about book characters and costume choices and parents talk with each other about the process (fun or frustrating) of bringing a costume together. Students get excited trying to guess which character their teacher will dress as and students and teachers have an opportunity to get to know each other better through the literature they each love to read.

Books don't only show us the world from someone else's perspective, they also allow us to go on an adventure each time we open the pages. We have the opportunity to live a whole other life for the time we immerse ourselves in each story. If we choose, we can live thousands of lives inside the one we are given and if making a book week costume encourages my child to read, then I am 100% in, whatever it takes. (Secretly relieved my son wanted to go as Harry Potter this year and we could buy the costume!)

Happy reading everyone!