Looking for an easy DIY book character costume for school or Halloween? I’ve gathered more than 30 fun book character costumes for kids and teachers, including plenty of simple and last-minute ideas you can make with clothes and supplies you may already have at home.
You’ll find characters from Dr. Seuss, Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog Man and other favorite children’s books, with ideas for Book Character Day, Read Across America, World Book Day, Halloween and school spirit week.
Some of these costumes are more elaborate than others, but you’ll find plenty of easy ideas using clothes you already own and a few simple accessories. Or go full DIY and make everything yourself!
Easy Book Character Costumes for School
Book character costumes are a fun way to celebrate favorite books and encourage kids to read. Schools may invite students to dress as a favorite character for Book Character Day, Read Across America, World Book Day, literacy week or even a Halloween celebration.
Whatever your school calls it, the idea is simple: choose a favorite book character and create a costume inspired by them. And it doesn’t need to be complicated! Many easy book character costumes can be made with regular clothes, a few simple accessories and a copy of the book.
Easy DIY Book Character Costumes
Don’t overthink your book character costume! Start by looking through your closet for clothes that resemble something your favorite character would wear. Thrift stores are another great place to find inexpensive pieces to complete the look.
Simple accessories can make a basic outfit much more recognizable. Add a hat, glasses, wig, cape or other signature prop, and don’t forget to bring a copy of the book. Many of these DIY book character costumes work just as well for kids, tweens, teens and teachers.
Dressing up in a literary costume from a classic children’s book is a fun way for the whole school to celebrate. Teachers can dress as their favorite book character. Some great ideas include Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and Curious George
Easy Last-Minute Book Character Costumes
Need a book character costume at the last minute? Start with clothes you already have and add one or two recognizable accessories. Bringing a copy of the book can also make a simple costume much easier to recognize.
- Cat in the Hat – Wear black clothes and add a red bow tie and the iconic red-and-white striped hat.
- Fox in Socks – Start with red clothing and add simple fox accessories and bright blue socks.
- Luna Lovegood – Pair colorful, mismatched clothes with Luna’s recognizable glasses and a wand.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Keep the outfit simple and add a printable or homemade character face to make the costume recognizable.
- Captain Underpants – Use basic clothes, a red cape and the character’s famously silly underwear-over-the-clothes look.
- Harry Potter – Dark pants, a white shirt, glasses and a homemade wand can quickly create an easy Harry Potter costume.
Don’t forget the book! Sending your child with the book that inspired their outfit is an easy way to make even a simple costume work for Book Character Day.
That may seem limited but there really are still a lot of fun costume ideas focused on book characters! Luckily our school allows the kids to dress up for Halloween with very little restrictions other than banning gore and weapons.
Tween Book Character Costumes
Speaking of Harry Potter, there are lots of great book character costume ideas from the Wizarding World, making them especially fun options for tweens and older kids. Start with the main characters like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, then consider secondary characters like Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley. And what about this cute Golden Snitch Costume, adorable and fun.
A few more popular book ideas from our bookshelf include a Big Nate, Dog Man, another Dog Man costume and Rodrick and Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid!
Easy to Make Book Character Costumes
I tend to focus on making DIY book character costumes for boys because I am a boy mom. I didn’t want to leave the girls out so I found some fun book character costume ideas for girls too. This Rainbow Fish can easily be adjusted for big kids with leggings and a fun tutu. I absolutely love this Paper Bag Princess Costume, it’s adorable.
If you have a group of friends that want to dress up together, then these No-Sew Care Bear Costumes would be great! Don’t forget about classic storybook costumes for girls too like Little Red Riding Hood, Pippi Longstocking, Fancy Nancy, Magic School Bus Ms. Frizzle, Luna Lovegood, and Winnie the Witch Costume.
Book Character Costumes For Kids and Teachers
Beyond Halloween, our school often hosts a storybook character dress up day during spirit week or even during ‘Read Across America day’ to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday. I’ve created a couple of Dr. Seuss costumes over the years for my boys including a Cat in the Hat Costume, an Easy Lorax Costume, Fox in Socks Costume and a Mr. Brown Costume.
It’s pretty easy to make many classic characters from Dr. Seuss books with a few basics like a black t-shirt, or even a black dress for the Cat in the hat or a blue wig for Thing 1 and 2. It’s also pretty easy to make or buy a Thing 1/2 shirt, combine it with this adorable Thing 1 and Thing 2 DIY Costume Wig.
You can’t go wrong with costumes from classic children’s authors like Roald Dahl like The BFG – The BFG Costume or Fantastic Mr. Fox Mask. How about a Mr. Smee Costume from Peter Pan or a set of Wizard of Oz Character Costumes. Thinking outside the box, or rather inside the house and this Wizard of Oz House Costume is amazing!
Book Character Costumes
DIY Dr. Seuss Costumes
Dr. Seuss is very popular with elementary school kids including Horton Hears A Who, Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. Check out the variety of Dr. Seuss costume options we have listed below.
Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss was published in 1965.
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss was published in 1957.
Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? by Dr. Seuss was published in 1970.
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss was published in 1971.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 are characters from The Cat in the Hat book.
Luna Lovegood first appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Here's another fun Luna Lovegood costume option.
We meet Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as well.
The Golden Snitch is a very important ball in the wizarding sport of Quidditch. We learn about the sport of Quidditch at Hogwarts in the first book too.
Speaking of Quidditch, this is a funny Harry Potter wearing a Quidditch jersey.
Book Series Character Costumes
Elementary school kids love book series chapter books, they are usually fun and reading level appropriate.
The Lord of the Hat is book 5 in the Creature from my Closet series by Obert Skye. The creature is a combination of Gollum from Lord of the Rings and Cat in the Hat.
Potterwookiee is book 2 in the Creature from my Closet series by Obert Skye. The creature is a combination of Harry Potter and Chewbacca from Star Wars.
There are 8 Big Nate books and even more Big Nate comic strip collection books. Big Nate is authored by Lincoln Peirce.
There is currently 17 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.
There are currently 10 Dog Man books in the series by Dav Pilkey.
There are 13 Captain Underpants books by Dav Pilkey
DIY Captain Underpants Costume for Book Character Day or Halloween!
Here's another Captain Underpants costume idea.
There are 10 books in the Pippi Longstocking series by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren.
There are dozens of Magic School Bus titles by Joanna Cole.
There are also dozens of Fancy Nancy books by Jane O'Connor.
There are currently 19 Winnie the WItch or (Winnie and Wilbur) books by Valerie Thomas.
Classic Storybook Character Costumes
The BFG by Roald Dahl features an orphan girl who befriends a giant known as the Big Friendly Giant
Fantastic Mr Fox Mask for World Book Day - Red Ted Art - Make crafting with kids easy & fun
Fantastic Mr. Fox is another fun book by Roald Dahl.
Peter Pan is by J. M. Barrie and features a variety of characters for costume ideas including Peter Pan and Mr. Smee.
Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale that can be traced back to versions of folk tales by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.
The Rainbow Fish is a children's picture book drawn and written by Swiss author and illustrator, Marcus Pfister, and translated into English by J. Alison James.
There are lots of Mr. Men books by Roger Hargreaves. Plus additional Little Miss books.
The Gruffalo is a children's picture book by author Julia Donaldson.
How to Make a Gruffalo Dress Up Apron for Creative Storytelling
Make your own DIY Gruffalo costume.
There are 42 Thomas the Train books written by Rev. Wilbert Awdry, and his son Christopher.
The Wizard of Oz is authored by L. Frank Baum.
Halloween Costumes 2014: The whole "Wizard of Oz" gang! (...plus a VIDEO!)
More Wizard of Oz costume ideas.
The Paper Bag Princess is created by Robert Munsch.
The Care Bears were characters created by the American Greetings company. There have been dozens of books written by various authors and publishers.
What is Book Character Day?
Book Character Day is a day when students, teachers and staff dress up as a character from their favorite book. It’s a great way to celebrate Love of Reading Week or Dr. Seuss Day. In addition you can have a costume parade and give presentations on your favorite book. It can also inspire little girls and boys to read more!
What are good costumes for Book Week?
There are quite a few book character costume ideas in this post. Beyond classic children’s authors like Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl, most children’s characters from nursery rhymes and animated movies or shows also have books. If your kiddo has an Elsa dress, I am sure they also have a Frozen book to bring to school too!
Just let them choose their favorite book characters and go for it! It doesn’t have to be a perfect costume, most kids are super excited to just dress up as their favorite book character costume.
More Character Day Ideas
A few more book character costumes for kids include Thomas the Train Halloween Costume, Gruffalo Dress Up Apron, Gruffalo Mouse Headband, and Mr. Men Costumes.
Buy Book Character Costumes
Don’t have the time or creativity to make a DIY book character costume? Check out these fun options from Amazon and Etsy and HalloweenCostumes.com.
- Peter Pan Costume
- Harry Potter Costume
- Fancy Nancy Accessory Set
- Prairie Girl Costume
- Cat in the Hat Costume Accessories
- Wild Things Costume or on etsy
- Elephant and Piggie Masks
- Pete the Cat Costume
- Amelia Bedelia Costume Ideas
- Very Hungry Catepillar Costumes
- Lots of book character accessory options to partially DIY your costume
marissa | rae gun ramblings says
Ahhh So much fun!! Thanks for including my little outfits