Fictitious characters of fiction.

On my trip to the Op Shop this week I purchased some brown corduroy pants, an orange and brown check shirt and a brown itchy woollen tie. I know, I know, I can just hear the seething of jealousy issuing forth from you all, as you marvel at my fashion forwardness!

But alas, this purchase wasn’t for me, it was for my 4 year old son, and it was to be his costume for the literature festival his kindergarten were to be involved with. He was going to go as Fantastic Mr Fox.

I assumed that since it was a literary festival, that the children would be dressed as a fictional character from a book. But after a week of planning, I woke up that morning to a very disagreeable 4 year old, that was now refusing to be fox-face painted, and demanding to be bedecked as Batman...Oh yes... Batman. Such a famous literary figure he was! Wasn’t he was a character in Dickens? A Tale of Two Cities if I remember rightly. A classic!

I sighed (dying a little inside, as I had had majestic visions of my son in all his brown-itchy-woollen-tie-splendour), got him into his trusty Batman costume, and set off for kinder.

As we got to his school, I was confronted by all the famous fictitious characters of fiction you’ve never met.

There was another two obvious Dickens fans, both who were dressed as Superman.I am happy to report that I did see a “Cleopatra” from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

There was also "Oscar", who I'm sure is from the Peter Carey classic Oscar and Lucinda.

But my favourite costume of the day was the greatest character from literary fiction ever, from Shakespeare’s:

It was great to see so many great characters from books in the one place!

I have been inspired as to what to dress the kids up as for the next festival we go to. I would like my son to go as that wonderful character from the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem:

“In Xanadu did Buzz Lightyear

A stately pleasure-dome decree”

Do you ever have grandiose ideas for your kids dress ups only for them to foil your plans?