40+ easy World Book Day costume ideas

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that we love dressing up for World Book Day here at Parrot Street HQ. However, as busy parents we know that it can be tricky to find the time to make a book character outfit for one child, let alone more.

Update for World Book Day 2025

We first wrote this blog post back in 2022, having created a fun costume download featuring photos of the lovely Parrot Street Support Crew all dressed up. This year we decided it was time for a refresh, so have created a brand new download featuring 50 all-new costume ideas.

The characters we've chosen are not only easy to recreate from outfits you might have in your wardrobe or dressing up box, but are based on characters from the most popular books in our bookshop and subscription boxes over the last 12 months. 

We’re sharing this brilliant download with our email subscribers and as a welcome gift when you join our email list today

A sneak peek of the all-new costume-goodness inside:

More World Book Day costume ideas

This year's download may be brand new, but we couldn't bring ourselves to remove these super-cute costume ideas from this post! 

Dress up as Mr Bear from Peace at Last

If you have some bear ears in your dressing-up box this is such a simple costume to recreate. Simply add pjs, dressing gown, slippers and a little black nose!

Go as two of our favourite book characters: Claude and Sir Bobblysock!

This little dog is one of our all-time favourite characters and is never far from his best friend, Sir Bobblysock. We nabbed a cheap red beret from eBay and created a simple collar from ribbon and a chocolate coin wrapper. A red sock is attached to a red jumper and a little black nose finishes the look!

Parrot Street Book Club x World Book Day

We're Emily and Sarah, founders of Parrot Street Book Club and HUGE fans of World Book Day. We've even written this one-stop guide to great world book day ideas which you might like to check out.