
World Book Day: How to make a last-minute costume
This year World Book Day takes place on 6 March 2025. It is a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and the joy of reading and takes place every year. In the UK, World Book Day is celebrated on the first Thursday in March.It is celebrated by 100 countries all over the world. Unesco - a worldwide organisation that encourages people to enjoy art and culture - choose it as a special day to celebrate reading.As well as talking about books and finding new books to read, many children celebrate the day by dressing up as their favourite characters. If you want to dress up, but don't have a costume sorted here are some tips.
1. Use your school uniform or PE kit
Lots of characters wear school uniform so why not adapt yours for World Book Day. Matilda, The Worst Witch and Harry Potter are just three examples. Or you could use your PE kit for Football Academy or Girl FC.
2. Get crafty
If you've got cardboard and paint you can get creative with all sorts of things. Fancy being the BFG, get a couple of cardboard plates, paint them your skin colour and attach them to the side of your face (with the help of an adult) to become giant ears. Or how about becoming Stickman with some cardboard and brown paint?
3. Upcycle
There are lots of things that you might usually throw away which could be useful. Plastic bottles can be turned into rockets or jet packs for a space-themed book like Goodnight Spaceman.Or you can use one to make the medicine from George's Marvellous Medicine.
4. Go through your wardrobe
There's probably lots of clothes you already own that would work well as an outfit. Stripy red and white t-shirt T-shirt Where's Wally or Tracy Beaker. A ballerina outfit and you can easily become Angelina Ballerina or Rosa the ballerina.
5. Put on your pyjamas
Or just don't bother changing out of them!Sophie from the BFG, The Midnight gang by David Walliams - there lots of books where the main characters wear pyjamas so get your best pair out. Last year many schools let children wear pyjamas to represent bedtime stories as well so if you can't think of a particular book maybe that's an option.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Dan Snow comes face to face with an Inca ‘ice mummy': "Nothing can prepare you"
TV historian Dan Snow goes to the ancient site of Machu Picchu in Peru where he makes some exciting discoveries Dan Snow comes face to face with an Inca 'ice mummy' in this latest travel show, Dan Snow & The Lost City, on 5 tonight (Thursday 5th June) at 9pm. The 'mummy' is a young girl who was frozen in time when she was sacrificed to the mountain Gods at Machu Picchu in Peru around 600 years ago. But now, using new archaeology and recently discovered ancient records, a picture can be pieced together of life and death in this extraordinary place. In this 90-minute special, Dan explores the unfolding story of these amazing finds. On his journey to the incredible UNESCO heritage site of Machu Picchu, Dan climbs into the mountains on the trail of the incredible lost city of the Incas. The magical metropolis perched high amongst the clouds, was rediscovered, overgrown by jungle, over 100 years ago. Dan says: 'Machu Picchu is the most overwhelming location for a historical site. Nothing can prepare you for arriving there - it's like a great big Coluseum. It is truly like a lost city in the jungle. It's the thing you dream about when you're a little kid and it's right there, sitting high up in the Andes.' He adds: 'I was lucky enough to go when they were doing some scientific research on an Inca Ice Mummy. It turned out to be the body of a 12-year-old Incan girl, and she was perfectly preserved in the ice. I had to hold it for a minute and I ended up with her in my arms and she's the age of my daughter. It was one of the most overwhelming things.' *Dan Snow and the Lost City is airing on 5 tonight at 9pm There's plenty more on TV tonight - here's the best of the rest.. THE BRITISH SOAP AWARDS 2025, ITV1, 8pm Looking back on 12 months of murder, make ups, break ups, mystery and mayhem, this is the night to celebrate the nation's best loved soap operas. Jane McDonald hosts the glam affair at The Hackney Empire, London, where the four biggest soaps - Corrie, Enders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks, battle it out for awards. It's been a big year, in which Gail Platt left the cobbles after 50 years, the Albert Square residents celebrated 40 years on air, a dramatic limo crash shocked Emmerdale fans and Hollyoaks jumped a year into the future with explosive twists and turns. The Platts, Slaters, Dingles and Osbornes will be vying for Best Family, while Jack P. Shepherd (David), Patsy Palmer (Bianca), Nicola Wheeler (Nicola) and Nicole Barber-Lane (Myra) are all hoping to win Best Comedy Performance. Other gongs up for grabs include Best Storyline, Villain of the Year, Scene of the Year and of course Best British Soap. Jane says: 'I can't wait to get my glittery frock on.' AMBULANCE, BBC1, 9pm More stories of heroism from the frontlines as we follow ambulance workers working to save lives. It's a tonic for the soul. In this episode call handlers are frustrated as they deal with a sexually abusive caller who has already rung 999 seven times in the past hour. It's proving difficult to trace his calls. A call comes in for a patient who has been stabbed in the chest in Croydon. Paramedics Phillipa and James are immediately dispatched alongside another ambulance, police, an incident response officer and London's air ambulance, HEMS. Working in Wimbledon, crewmates Astrid and Lydia are dispatched to an 85-year-old woman who has broken her ankle after falling down the stairs. Arriving on the scene, they find Enid lying on the floor in extreme pain, with her ankle bone exposed. Enid's concerned neighbours are at a loss for what to do as the elderly lady reveals she has never felt the need for an ambulance before. EMMERDALE, ITV1, 7pm Finally, the grim discovery of the body in the lake is revealed to be Nate's. Cain and Moira are blindsided when they find out. When Cain hears that the body is so decomposed that he can't even visit his son, he starts to experience flashbacks to their last interaction. Cain is also now in the frame due to the fight he had with Nate on the day he died. He's furious as the police question him. Chas and Tracy become suspicious. EASTENDERS, BBC1, 7.30pm Kat and Alfie prepare to celebrate their joint stag and hen party. Kat is thrilled when Kim reveals the theme of the 'hag', but her happiness is short-lived when she makes a worrying discovery on the family computer. At The Vic, the karaoke party is a flop and Elaine is furious when Kim reveals that Cindy's relaunch party is a success. Elaine decides to attend the party to annoy Cindy. Tommy is furious when Kat reveals that Amy is babysitting.


The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
The 'Great Edinburgh poem': a makar's search for the heart of a city
The first firecracker in my inbox was a commission to write what could be termed my 'Great Edinburgh Poem'. A daunting task at the best of times. Season into that, this commission coming from Edinburgh City of Lit to mark their 20 year anniversary as the world's first UNESCO City of Literature. Lurking in the undertow, an even more grandiose celebration that called for some poetic cap-doffing – that being Edinburgh's turning 900-years-old as a city full stop. Having grown up in the Portobello area of Edinburgh, and also serving as the Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University, the stakes were immediately set high. Read more in our series The Future of Edinburgh: Edinburgh is a complex beast, abstruse and arcane, hidden Closes and summer rain. I love it, it hurts me, I'm so, so grateful to have been wombed and raised here. All the same, it's a risky pursuit, there's no way of my poem ever being everything to everyone. My idea was to quest off on a safari to track down where the Edinburgh's heart might be cooring down – places that chimed and chirruped for me came reeking in younger years nostalgia, alongside them sat some of the more trophistic symbols of the city. My list includes: The Portobello Bookshop, The Mosque Kitchen, Sampson's Ribs, The Sheep Heid Inn Skittle Alley, Jack Kane Sport Centre, National Library of Scotland, and, yup, Edina Castle. In the end, it came back to people, that is Edinburgh for me – the denizens who dwell here: whether generations deep or in their city-living infancy. I'd always wanted to write a poem that dissolved into a list of names of many people I love. And so I did. In order to amplify that multi-authored, multi-perspective, global vibe, we enlisted a gaggle of Edinburgh College of Art animators, from 12 plus different countries, to respond to sections of the poem. Together they brewed a stunning fandango of a film, widening the narration and the lens. Upon its grand unveiling, amongst the deluge of soppy sentiments, applause, and zealous plaudits there was, of course, a few cries of 'drivel' and 'talentless to compared to X', but perhaps that's as it should be (another canny demonstration of Edina's rich vagaries). I should say, all the more gnarly comments were on Twitter/X, and I've since left. Michael Pedersen (Image: Shaun Murawki) For Edinburgh International Book Festival moving into his new home at Edinburgh Futures Institute – the former Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion and Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh – I wrote a piece entitled Wards on the Wards. This was a tribute to my lovely mum, who had trained as a maternity nurse on these very corridors in her late teens/early twenties. In order to assist, she rushed off to retrieve her nurse's notebooks containing the names of all the babies she cared for during her last few shifts there – annotations of jaundice, broken hips, mucus-filled lungs, and blue babies, haunting the healthier crop of younglings she helped into the word. The poem issues a sizeable swoon at her doing so much so young, nerves wringing and left alone to save these baby lives. Wow. It ends with a meditation on my mum growing older and the hefty task of keeping up the work the garden takes to reach full bloom; this becoming more gruelling as her body ages. It meant a lot to her, I'm so chuffed to have been able to conjure it. Shortly after this my mum was diagnosed with cancer, it became a lot very fast, all-consuming, and though she's now recovering well there's still hurdles ahead, and we had to have those life-altering chats about the worse-case scenario. I am carrying these sentiments with me into a forthcoming commission for Edinburgh University's Medical School turning 300-years-old next year, paying tribute to all the young doctors and nurses they've propelled off into the world, especially those that volley towards our NHS. What a gift. Another commission that reverberated through me when approached was to sculpt something for the Samaritans. I was privileged to write a poem about reaching out for hope in times of despair – flares of light cast into the gathering dark. I think of lighthouses flinging out their beams to offer courage and safety to rope the way home. Edinburgh bridges are as robust and beautiful as they are eerie and dangerous. This commission would help catapult their new tartan range, SamariTartan, out into the world. Of course, I think of the cherished friend I lost, Scott Hutchison, in crafting these words. The gargantuan absence his leaving flings across this city in which our friendship was born and burgeoned. Edinburgh is full of ghosts, we carry the anchors of our greatest losses into even the happiest of moments. Yet, trilling above the loss, this city feels thronging with the spectres of magical memories, the splendour of the past – that's what Scott really is to me (warm and wonderous). Reflecting on Edinburgh, Neu! Reekie! comes fast to mind, the lustre we fomented here, over ten plus years of unfurling literary events upon the city. I co-founded Neu! Reekie! with Rebel Inc's Kevin Williamson, and down the line we were joined by photographer, Kat Gollock, and music-maker/FiniTribe diva, Davie Miller. Together we hosted hundreds of arts extravaganzas curating take-overs for the likes National Museums of Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland, EIF, EIFF, EIBF, & more. Yet at the core of it was our grassroots shows in Summerhall, Pilrig Church, Limited Ink, Leith Theatre, Leith St Andrew's, and the Scottish Books Trust. Scotland's premiere avant-garden noisemakers, Neu! Reekie! left a gap, a gulf, a lacuna, that I don't think has been fully filled, despite a truly sublime number of new nights and festivals upping their game. We're always jostled by punters in pubs that it's time to bring it back, but I doubt that will ever happen. Neu! Reekie! answered a clarion call for something as artistically enriching as it was rambunctious, but so much of the momentum came from growing, evolving, and outdoing ourselves, taking new challenge by the horns. A comeback, having climbed so high, seems to lack the gonzo spirit of it all, expectations would already be soaring, it'd need to be something jaw-dropping. I turn instead to the artists inhabiting the city now, ploughing their own furrow, and hope to be one of this clan. Those makars striving to make the city a more vibrant, progressive, powerful, intriguing, kinder, and fairer place, some simply by doing what they do so brilliantly. To name a few choice denizens: Young Fathers, Nadine Shah, Mark Cousins, Val McDermid, Emun Elliott, Withered Hand, Irvine Welsh, Sarah Muirhead, Kevin Harman, and Jonathan Freemantle. Whereas I arrived into the Edinburgh Makar role a tad worried about the carousel of commissions I might be riding in on, it's been quite the opposite. These commissions have been creative enzymes, gusto giving galvanisers. My poem for Edinburgh is called Be More, Edinburgh. It's an encouragement, nay prod in the ribs, that as well as celebrating this city, that holds my heart so dearly, I have to ensure that I'm one of those insisting it doesn't waiver in doling out its precious succour – at home and afar! That it supports our charities and protesters, and casts out its own muckle beam – a luminous bolt of welcome kilted into the sky. Some might say I didn't push hard enough, I'll be thinking on that, there's time yet. Michael Pedersen is a Scottish poet, author and spoken word performer. Alongside his writing, he co-founded the Edinburgh arts collective Neu! Reekie! which existed from 2010 to 2022. He is the current Edinburgh Makar and writer-in-residence at The University of Edinburgh


Spectator
3 days ago
- Spectator
Ridiculously enjoyable: Doom – The Dark Ages reviewed
Grade: A In the beginning, there was Doom. The videogame landscape was formless and void. But id Software created a square-headed space marine and several billion two-dimensional demons for him to kill with a shotgun, a chainsaw and a BFG (Big Fracking Gun); and several billion teenage boys saw that it was good, and they called it the First-Person Shooter, and lo, they gave up leaving their bedrooms altogether. The original Doom (1993) really was the genesis of a genre: dark, intense, relentless, addictive. The latest iteration of the game – which plunks our space marine and his demon hordes in a medieval world rather than a space station – stays true to its vibe, while using all the processing grunt available in next-gen consoles to tune that vibe up. You're still chasing a blue keycard to open that door, still strafing frantically to avoid incoming fireballs, still grunting and panting as the screen throbs red at low health, still mowing down uglies in their hecatombs. The big innovation: Doomguy now has a shield. You can shield-charge distant enemies, throw it like Captain America, bounce incoming projectiles back to source – and, yes, if you must, use it to block attacks. But it doesn't make the game defensive. When you're on the verge of dying, baddies drop more health boosts, so the way to stay alive is… to attack more aggressively. And melee-strikes reward more ammo, so you're further incentivised to get up close and personal. There are so many demons. Even on easy mode ('Hurt Me Plenty') it's frenetic; and the gameplay is rich without being overcomplicated. It's just ridiculously enjoyable. Welcome back, Doomguy.