My daughter's school always tries to promote reading and this year, as well as the traditional book fair where the primary school hall transforms into a bookshop, the principal has decided that the children could dress up as their favorite book character for the last day of the book fair, which is today.
My youngest daughter is far from being a bookworm (unlike her older sister), but there is one author that she really loves reading:
David Walliams. I've hear that he is a very popular children's book author and I was curious to know what it is about his books that makes children love them so much, even those who don't particularly like to read*. I'm in the process of reading my second one (I know it's not my age bracket, but a book is a book, and I think it would be a shame not to read a book that's available to me as it's already in the house, plus, my daughter practically forced me to read it). I must say I've read worse (and within my own age bracket!) and these books are very funny and very imaginative. Here's what's on my night stand at the moment:
When I heard about the dress up day, I immediately thought of making a grey-haired wig with a bun attached and a bank robber's mask so the little one could dress up as David Walliams' "Gangsta Granny". I'm not great as designing crochet (knitting is more my thing) so I went searching on Pinterest and found exactly what I was looking for with the help of the Ninja Turtles!
I used Holyjeans'
Crochet Ninja Turtle Mask Hat Beanie pattern as a basis (it's free:-) but made a few changes such as the colors (grey hair and a black mask), I added a flat circle that I stuffed to make the bun shape, I decided to make 2 extensions on each side of the black mask to be able to tie is up and make it look more like a cartoon bank robber's, and as it was missing a little something to hide the back of the hair, I crocheted a little trapezoid shaped grey extension at the back. My daughter's hair is long so I had to tie it into a bun and hide it inside the hat, if you're wondering what the big lump is;)
After a rummage through our clothes, we picked a double layer of my tan tights (it's cold out you know!), an old flowery dress of mine I never wear (knee-high for me, perfect for a 10 year-old granny;-), a purple cardigan and here is our version of
Gangsta Granny (we decided to skip the smell of cabbages!):
We decided on the runners because she might have PE today and I told her that grannies usually wear comfortable shoes, especially when they need to make a quick getaway on their granny scooters;-)
*While this is not a book review, I think I found David Walliams' tricks to drawing children to his books: one example of which includes a detailed set of instructions on how to pretend to brush your teeth, but don't worry, it also mentions that it's nearly as easy as brushing your teeth;-);-). I think all parents who take their parenting job seriously should read these books:-)
**I wish to apologise for the unusual high amount of smiley emoticons in this blog post, it's just that you can't read Grangsta Granny without having the odd fit of laughter; this book should be prescribed by doctors;-);-);-)
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