See Suzy Spin: Reading Week 2014

Every year, our school has one week that is dedicated to promoting reading. Classes have book assignments, the school has a Caldecott Parade of floats, there are special programs in the library, and on Friday we have a big assembly where all the students dress as book characters. It's my favorite. Last year, I surprised the students by dressing up as a book character EVERY DAY. This year I had tons of students ask me if I was planning to dress up every day again, so I absolutely could not let my fans down. This year, I went bigger and better. What a great Reading Week we had! (Click here to see last year's array of costumes...)

Here is what I did this year.

Monday: Madeline (for the Caldecott Parade) by Ludwig Bemelmans

This was a challenge to find a yellow hat. I finally ended up just buying a cheap floppy hat and spray painting it yellow! (Needless to say, I didn't wear that very long...) The blue dress is a thrift score that I just added a Peter Pan collar to, with a red bow sewn on. Add white tights and some patent leather shoes and the outfit works!

Tuesday: Camilla Cream from The Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon (I love this book SO much!)

What a fun book this is! If you have never read this, you really must. It's on par with Dr. Seuss. For this outfit, I bought some cheap striped kid socks from Walmart and layered them. I also bought a white tank and added a purple bow, like Camilla's PJ's. I made a poofy pink bow for my hair and spent some serious time with grease face paints. It helps to make your lines somewhat straight if you start at the top and put painters tape on your face. I'm not lying.

Wednesday: An I-Spy book by Jean Marzollo

This was a fun one. My students all pretty much love I-Spy books - even 7th graders! I made a freezer paper stencil for the logo. (If you don't know how to do that, I would highly recommend googling it and trying it out. Makes for a super easy and legit-looking shirt.) After the paint on the shirt dried, I just sewed and hot glued all sorts of wacky things onto it. If you try this, make sure the objects you choose are pretty lightweight and that you don't put too much on your arms or elbows. Otherwise, it will be super annoying to work in! Take my word for it.

Thursday: Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin

My kindergartners went CRAZY for this outfit. (I was pretty pleased with my cat-ear hair do! I found it here.) I just thrifted a blue shirt and added a big felt heart. I made a cat tail from some blue scrap material and sewed it onto the back of the shirt. I threw on a pair of navy cords and my red converse and voila! And I had the added bonus of being very comfy in this outfit.

Friday: The Diction-Fairy (haha!) This is not a book character, but I chopped up an old dictionary to create the look, so...

I went with a whole fairy-godmother meets librarian meets the 80's vibe here. I found a pink jersey dress at my thrift store and used that as my base. Then I created a tutu from paper rolls, taken from a from a chopped up book, that I sewed onto a fabric base. It ties in the back, so it is removable. I made the wings with the book jacket and a wire hanger to help it keep it's shape. The wire is covered in more paper. Then I accessorized with some crazy pink tights and leg warmers and cat-eye glasses.

This year is a double bonus because my oldest is a kindergartner this year. So I got to dress HIM up as well! He wanted to be Dr. Seuss this year. (Mom let him choose all on his own. I have to say, I was seriously jazzed about his choice!) I think he is the cutest little Dr. Seuss there ever was. He was pretty pleased with himself!