The Paper Bag Princess

Today was "dress like your favorite book character" at school.  It was part of library month.  When I asked the children who they might like to dress up as, Brandt said, "A Jedi."  While Jedi aren't really characters from books, Brandt does bring home a lot of Star Wars books, so I couldn't very well tell him no.  I did suggest he dress up like the magician from The Magician's Elephant, a book by Kate DiCamillo we had just finished reading a week or so before.  But he didn't want to do that.  He said, "No, I'll just wear my Jedi costume from Halloween."  That was awfully easy, so I didn't try to persuade him otherwise.

Blythe wanted to dress up too, and at bedtime several nights ago, when I pulled out some books to read, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch was in the stack.  I suggested she go as Elizabeth.  We would make her a dress out of a grocery sack, a crown out of some gold posterboard, and she could carry her stuffed dragon Stuffie.  She loved it!  So last night we made a dress, cleverly using the handles from the grocery sack as the straps for the dress.  It was far too short to wear alone, but this morning she put on a tan colored skirt that blended in very nicely.  Her crown looked good--nice and wobbly--and she was delighted she got to take Stuffie to school with her.  I wanted to smear something dark on her face to look like soot, but she didn't want to go quite that far.