Eimear Hutchinson: Stuck for World Book Day costume inspiration? Here are a few ideas... with an Irish twist

EVERY year, I get caught out by World Book Day, in the sense that the four girls arrive home with about three days to go demanding all sorts of elaborate costumes based on their favourite books.

So, I am putting it out there and letting you all know that there is exactly one week to go to World Book Day, this year it falls on Thursday, March 7.

This year, in an attempt to help you organise costumes in plenty of time (assuming that the norm everywhere is for schoolchildren to dress up as their favourite characters and it’s not just a North Cork quirk!), I wanted to give a nod to some fabulous Irish authors and some easy costume ideas based off some homegrown characters.

The Milly McCarthy series has probably been one of the biggest hits in this house over the last few years, and rightly so; the books are funny, relatable and, best of all, based in Cork and written by Cork author Leona Forde.

There are currently two books in the series and the one we have recreated before was Milly McCarthy Is A complete catastrophe. The book is illustrated in simple tones so, to be exact, you would want a red school skirt (we went with grey), a white shirt, a red tie and a school jumper tied around the waist. 

My daughter put her hair in a side plait to finish off the look.

You could always send your child in wearing an Irish dancing costume, if it’s something you happen to have in the house, based on the second book, Milly McCarthy And The Irish Dancing Disaster!

Emma Larkin is an author we have been enjoying for many years now. She has a couple of different series aimed at different age groups but the main theme across all her book is girls in sport. There is a series for early readers that follows Izzy on her sporting quests and Twin Power is for slightly older girls and follows twins, Aoife and Aidan and their love of GAA.

It’s an easy one to recreate, especially at this time of year, as the GAA season thinks about kicking off – you could imitate the books covers and go for a black and red kit, or you could be a bit looser and wear your own local GAA kit.

The Friendship Fairies series, by Lucy Kennedy, she of TV fame, is a firm favourite in this house over the last few years. The books are really nicely written and the theme’s running throughout are always lovely; showing kindness, helping others and being good to our planet. If our house is anything to go by, there is any amount of bits in the dress-up box that can be pulled together to create a fairy costume, so this is a really easy one and a great set of books to represent.

Nina Carbery launched her first book last year, Ride To The Rescue, and my two horse- loving ladies absolutely loved it. As a parent, I also loved it because there was a strong secondary tale about environmental awareness and protection that ran throughout the book. 

Not the easiest to recreate if you don’t have a lot of horse riding gear just lying around the house but if you do it requires no thought and my girls love an excuse to show off their horsey attire.

All of my girls have absolutely loved the Peter Donnelly series about the President and his various hijinks, between losing his glasses, almost missing his birthday party and tales of his beloved animals. They are funny and engaging, and again, dressing up as the President would be a pretty easy one to recreate – a pair of smart trousers, a shirt and tie, and throw in a small pair of glasses and you’re probably close enough.

There are lots of Oliver Jeffers fans out there, I have no doubt, but did you know he is Irish? Belfast-born, but now based in the U.S, we can claim him for our own for the purposes of this article. Last World Book Day, there were a lot of crayons at my daughters’ school – it’s an easy one to recreate and a fantastic book to emulate. Wear a pair of matching coloured leggings and top, and if you are feeling crafty create a matching cone as a hat.

Niall Breslin, AKA Bressie, has a wonderful series of books, that I have mentioned many time before, but for this exercise in dressing up they provide plenty of easy options for dressing up. 

The Sleep Scan is a handy one to replicate as it just involves wearing pyjamas, and who doesn’t love an excuse to spend the day in their loungewear!

I’m a little biased here, being from Sligo, but the girls love the series by Judi Curtin that follows Lily, a maid in Lissadell House, which was home to the Gore-Booths in the early 20th century and a place W.B. Yeats was a frequent visitor to. A nice nod to historical books and a relatively easy costume to recreate – a black dress and (preferably!) a white apron and a little white cap would do the job nicely.