Engaging Character Day Ideas and Costumes (2024)

Book Character Day is celebrated every year on October 31st. Students, teachers, librarians, and book fans can bring their favorite characters to life. Schools across the country celebrate by inviting staff and students to dress up as their favorite characters. Need some quick and easy inspiration? We’ve got your back with low-prep character day ideas and costumes!

Imagining what’s happening in the story makes reading enjoyable. Mentally, we imagine what the characters look like, feel like, and think like. We get to share our interpretations of book characters on Book Character Day!

Take a peek at how these teachers and librarians made read-alouds even more magical with character costumes.

Do you love all things creepy? Then you’ll fall in love with Jenni Clark’s Creepy Carrots costume that she wore while reading the book with Novel Effect! Read Creepy Carrots with Novel Effect!

Kelsey from myclassbloom shows off 3 costumes she whipped up from clothing and accessories. The three characters are from Novel Effect’s soundscapes. Read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and There Was an Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything with Novel Effect!

Dressing up as a book character isn’t for everyone. Some of our shyer students may not want to dress up. Other students may feel left out if they are unable to come up with a costume in time. If inviting students to dress up isn’t your thing, try these alternative Character Day costumes instead:

• Use a character greeting. Markers and name tags are all you need. On the name tags, students write the name of their favorite character. During Morning Meeting or circle time, students greet each other by the character’s name. Keep the fun rolling throughout the day by challenging students to only use their character names.
• Give your students a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes. Students can become characters with the Hot Seat. Put students in small groups of 3-5 so everyone can perform. One student gets to be the main character. Other students will pose questions for the hot seat to answer in character.
• Playing tableaux is a fun way to get students into character. Like a scene from a movie, tableaux are where students act out important scenes. Make small groups, give each group a scene to act out, then have them perform it.
• Strike a Pose is another spin on tableaux. Choose a scene from the book that made the main character feel something. Put the students in the scene and have them strike a pose to show how they envisioned the character’s response.
• Try having students create an Instagram post as if they were the character. They can draw the character hanging out with friends, visiting their favorite place, eating their favorite food, or sharing an inspirational quote.