Family Literacy Day celebrated at West Highlands Elementary School

By Chris Dowbiggin

AMHERST - The halls of West Highlands Elementary School came alive with the presence of familiar children’s storybook characters on Tuesday.
Much of the student body took part in “Dress Up as Your Favourite Book Character Day” to coordinate with “Family Literacy Day”, a day celebrating Canadian adult and children reading and learning together.
Various children from grades primary to six dressed up as their favourite characters from their favourite books. Some from traditional stories, some not so much.
School Librarian Bev Fenton said she was very impressed with the effort put into the children’s costumes.
“There were so many creative ones. I didn’t want it to turn into something that was going to be a big ordeal,” said Fenton.
“I just wanted everyone to have fun, and most importantly, stress the importance and value of reading.”
While the school has celebrated the day in past years, they decided instead of having a variety of events all in one day, they would stretch the events out over the last two weeks of January.
Last week, the school had a “Reading Challenge” encouraging students to read as many books as they can in a week, by bringing home books and a reading log sheet for students and parents to keep track by filling them out. Prizes were awarded to the top readers in each class.
But for the kids, the real exciting part was getting to dress up just like their favourite characters for a day this week.
Alexander Burt, 7, dressed up like “Captain Underpants”, the underwear-clad superhero who stars in a series of comedy/adventure books by Dav Pilkey.
He said while these are his favourite books, it’s hard to choose the best book in the series because they are all very consistent in entertainment value.
“I can’t really choose because they’re all really awesome and I like them all,” he said.
Chloe Lewis, 5, wore a Snow White dress to school. She said while she hasn’t read the book yet, she owns the movie and loves it.
“I love Snow White and I don’t have the book of it, but I have the movie of it, and I want the book of it,” she said.
Daniel Rector, 7, chose to dress up like an author instead of a character. He was Robert Munsch.
Rector said his favourite book by Munsch is “Andrew’s Loose Tooth.”
“It’s about how (Andrew) eats an apple and yells “Ow” because his tooth is loose. The tooth fairy comes and ties one end of a rope to his tooth and the other to his car, and his car breaks. Like, it shatters into pieces.”
Jordan Hamel, 9, dressed up as a Cabbage Patch doll. She said while she can’t remember the name of the book, she picked it because the book has spent a long time in her family.
“My mom had it when she was a little girl, so I thought I would pick it, because this is one of my favourite characters that I liked,” she said.
Fenton said she thinks all the fun activities celebrating reading will help boost the children’s motivations to go to the nearest bookshelf and choosing a good story to read when looking for something to do.
“That’s the whole thing of it. To have fun and relate by dressing up. We’ve just taken two themes, in dressing up and reading, and combined them to have a lot of fun.”