When is World Book Day 2025? Easy costume ideas for kids as annual literary celebration takes place

The annual celebration day is marked around the world, with children from all over the globe dressing up as their favourite literary character as part of celebrations. Dressing your child up for school or another event could be a nightmare for some, but here’s everything you need to know to make the day go smoothly.

When is World Book Day 2025?

World Book Day 2025 will be held on Thursday, March 6.

Easy costume ideas for World Book Day 2025

Dressing up your child for World Book Day doesn’t have to cost you a lot of time or money. Costumes have become an important part of marking the day, so here are some ideas to make preparing for it as painless as possible:

Where’s Wally?

All you need for this costume is a red stripy top or jumper, a pair of glasses and a bobble hat. If you don’t have a stripy top or jumper to hand, try using white tape across a red t-shirt or jumper.

Harry Potter

Dressing your child up as the famous boy wizard is easier than you would think. Use something like a make-up pencil (or something else that will wash off easily!) to draw the famous thunderbolt scar on your child’s forehead.

One of the best parts of this easy costume is that your child can use their normal school uniform for most of it, maybe try adding a black cape if you have it. You can also use something like a drumstick or a chopstick to act as Harry’s magic wand.

Matilda

All you need for one of Roald Dahl’s most famous character’s is a blue dress and a red ribbon in your child’s hair. Top it off any giving them a pile of books to add to the costume.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is possibly the easiest costume to sort and perfect for those who don’t want to go all out for World Book Day. Quite simple, all you need to emulate the famous cartoon-esque character’s costume is a simple white shirt, black shorts and a black backpack.

BFG

Another easy Roald Dahl character is the BFG. One of the most iconic features is the BFG’s huge ears - you can use some paper or card to recreate the large ears, and stick them onto a headband.

Alongside the makeshift ears, you could raid an adult’s wardrobe for a baggy shirt, baggy trousers and a brown waistcoat. To add to the costume, you could also pop a doll in the shirt pocket, as a nod to Sophie in the book.

Mr Men and Little Miss characters

The Mr Men and Little Miss characters are classics of the child literary genre and are also easy costumes to recreate.

For example, for Mr Bump, add bandages (or even toilet roll!) and plasters to an all-blue outfit. Little Miss Sunshine would only take an all yellow outfit to pull off, coupled with some red ribbons in the hair. Mr Tickle is an all-orange outfit, with maybe something like feather boas attached to the arms for the famously long and wriggly arms.