I’ve always been a Book Week sad. I have distinct memories of my teacher librarian mother helping me plan annual Book Week costumes as a youngster, my favorite being the year my sister and I dressed up as gum nut infants from the classic May Gibbs novels.

I know some people detest the planning of Book Week costumes, but it’s one of my favorite school dress-up events.

I always let the girls pick their own Book Week characters – within reason, of course – and I’m not doing a dragon costume anytime soon. They’ve mostly opted to play characters who look a little like them, and you’ll notice that this is frequently the case.

Books that mirror your own life are frequently the ones with which you relate, which is a plus when it comes to Book Week costumes.

The 2018 Book Week theme is ‘Find Your Treasure,’ so there’s plenty of room for book explorers, pirates, and detectives if you want to go less book character and more ‘on-theme.’

Truly Tan, Friday Barnes, Quinn from ‘The Mapmaker Chronicles,’ or Sherlock Holmes are all good choices if you want to mix detective and literary character. See here for more pirate costume ideas.

PudStar is dressing up as one of the characters from the ‘Our Australian Girl’ series this year, and we’ve purchased a costume from this section of Costume Box because, in my experience, I end up spending more when I put it all together myself!

Using Book Week, you basically have two alternatives, and we alternate between them: buy a ready-made costume and add accessories, do-it-yourself with items you already have, or rush about to fifty-million stores looking for things.

The costumes below are a mix of our own and some from Costume Box, because their service is incredibly fast, and super-rapid is good when it comes to Book Week costume stress.

She dressed up as Pippa from ‘Pippa’s Island’ last year, which was a lot of fun — she had a shirt made locally with her favorite quotation from the book on it, some’motifs’ from the book placed in her bun; muffins, book cover, tropical flowers, and, of course, she carried the book!

From her favorite book about remarkable women in history, The Small One is dressing up as an Egyptian queen (of course she’s a queen!). This costume is also from Costume Box’s Historical Costumes collection.

She played Annabelle in ‘Piccolo and Annabelle’ last year, and she’s featured below with our lovely Rachel, who played Kumiko in ‘Kumiko and the Dragon.’

Pud had a lot of fun making the main character (unamed) from ‘The Terrible Suitcase,’ which was one of my favorite (and easiest) costumes for her.

This was also the year I came up with the idea of making a ‘book cover lanyard’ to identify who she was, which I’ve done ever since.

Prue Theroux is a French actress who is well-known for her The Cool Librarian was a personal favorite; with all of her arms made of stuffed sleeves, she was a bit stunning and perfectly encapsulated the librarian’s job! Harry Potter fancy dress adult costumes are always popular, and Pud made a stunning Hermoine.

The Small One has worn a variety of dinosaur-themed outfits, including ‘Edwina the Dinosaur’ in the photo below. The year I created The Wild One a ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ frock and she carried the book, I felt myself quite humorous – technically, Nan made the clothing, but that’s a minor detail!

Every year, I like putting together a Queen of Hearts, an Alice, and a cast of characters from the classic Alice in Wonderland. It’s time for the Alice in Wonderland Party.

Similarly, Wizard of Oz Costumes remains a popular choice, and novels like these are classics for a reason.

Since the release of ‘Mechanica’ and ‘Aquatica,’ the pupils at my school have been obsessed with these books; you can see my review of ‘Mechanica’ here.

Based on Lance Balchin’s sketches, we created some truly stunning mechanical butterfly wings, which served as the inspiration for Pud’s mechanical butterfly outfit. This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in mechanics, manufacturing, or tinkering.

I’m blown away by these David Walliams costumes, and several of my classmates wore them last year.

David Walliams is the modern-day Roald Dahl, and I heartily recommend these books – especially for teens who aren’t keen on dressing up!

We’ve done Cat in the Hat a few times now, and I was tempted this year to just wear my very ‘Cat in the Hat’ Ruby Olive earrings and call it a day! Ha! There are a plethora of Dr. Seuss outfits available.

Every year at the Book Week Parade, there are at least five Where’s Wallys, and I adore them! This is a good one for the workers. Wally Costumes can be found below.