When your child comes home from school and says that the teacher has asked that all children participating in Book Week this year are expected to use themes from Australian children’s books, what do you do? Relax! When you check out our list, you will realise that there are more ideas for costumes related to Australian children’s book characters than you may think. It will be easy to find the ones that your children will be excited to dress up in.
If you are looking for great Aussie icons costume ideas, the first Australian themed book week character you may think of is “Blinky Bill” the iconic, cheeky Koala dressed in red shorts as a costume. You can use this list of Australian theme costume ideas for celebrations such as Australia Day or NAIDOC.
10 Famous Australian Animal Book Characters dress up ideas
1. Blinky Bill the cheeky Koala - red shorts and some animal ears and nose will do the trick, or you could use this ready-made costume and add some shorts and suspenders.
3. Sheep from Where is the Green Sheep.
4. Wombat Costume or a Kangaroo, from Wombat Stew or the international bestseller, Diary of A Wombat.
5. Any of the 26 animals from Animalia such as a Lion, Tiger or even a unicorn. You will have many great ideas to choose from for book week costume ideas for boys or girls from this one book.
6. Pig the Pug - your younger child will look adorable in a book parade costume as Pig.
7. Rainbow Serpent is a choice for reptile lovers and it respects Australian indigenous history.
8. Mary Poppins, this loveable nanny is British but the original book was written by an Aussie, so we can put her in this category.
9. Zombies are very versatile as they fit into Australian book character dress ups because they are in the hilarious book by Andy Griffith, Zombie Bums from Uranus but they obviously double up as great Halloween costumes as well.
10. The Wiggles are iconic and many girls will want to parade in their own Emma Wiggle costume.
What if my child does not like Book Week dress up parades?
Not all children are outgoing and excited to dress up. Shy children sometimes feel very uncomfortable in fancy dress. They may even want to stay home because they feel embarrassed. You can help them to choose minor accessories so that they still enjoy thinking about book week costume ideas, without drawing too much attention to themselves. You can keep it low key and still be in the spirit of Australian kids book characters.
- Masks help children who are shy because they can cover their face and it helps them to feel safe. Try this Peacock costume or just the mask and it relates to ‘The Peacock Detectives.
- Hats such as a derby hat, can be used on its own or part of an Australian book character dress up like the famous Ginger Meggs or a character from The Magic Pudding.
