80 Best Book Character Costumes
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Best Book Character Costumes
Dress up as your favorite book character for Halloween and have a Happy Bookish Halloween (or World Book Day)! How about one of these book character costume ideas from the favorite children’s picture books, chapter books, and middle grade books?
Bring a favorite book character to life with easy book character costumes that you buy — or make. I even have book character costume ideas for adults and for teachers!
What are some of the best book character costume choices?
You could go with a classic book character like Alice in Wonderland, Madeline, or Max of Where the Wild Things Are.
Or, you could select more contemporary favorite book character costumes like Elephant and Piggie, Ada Twist, or Luna Lovegood!
Whatever costume idea you pick, it’s a celebration of reading and books, right?
And that’s something to celebrate!
Whether for Book Week, World Book Day, Read Across America Day, or Halloween, you’ll find inspirational children’s book character costume ideas on this list.
I’ve linked to many costumes you can buy (because if you’re like me, you want something easy) and some costumes that you can make yourself, for those of you who are better than me with DIY projects or shopping at thrift stores.
In very few cases, if I couldn’t find a homemade costume or store option, I’ve linked to the book. Look through the illustrations and descriptions to make your own costume with clothes you have around the house or that you buy.
Hopefully, this list will inspire you to find a fun book costume that works for you! And if you need a last-minute easy book character costume, this list will help!
Also, if you’re looking for group costume ideas, use a book series with many characters and go as the characters from that book.
These costumes are characters from board books, picture books, and chapter books, there are so many costume ideas here, I think you’ll find one that you can’t resist.
Book Character Costumes: A to E
Ready for the A to E book character costume list?
Start with favorite characters that begin with the letter A like Ada Twist, Alice in Wonderland, and Amelia Bedelia, then continue on to Captain Underpants, Clifford, the Cat in the Hat, and Dog Man…
Ada Twist polk a dot dress and scientist costume
Alice in Wonderland & Characters: Cheshire Cat, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, The Mad Hatter girl child style 1 or child style 2, boy child size, Queen of Hearts (female teen), White Rabbit
Captain Underpants (this full body book character costume is fantastic!)
Cat in the Hat (see more Dr. Seuss below)
Charlie Brown (DIY Charlie Brown here)
Clifford the Big Red Dog (toddler-size unisex) — talk about adorable!!
Cow (Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type) baby, child, adult
Crayon (The Day the Crayons Quit) / DIY Crayon Costume
Curious George & the Man in the Yellow Hat
Dragon (Dragons Love Tacos, Puff the Magic Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon, Eragon)
Dr. Seuss Characters: Horton Hears A Who, The Lorax, Thing 1 and Thing 2, The Cat in the Hat child / Cat in the Hat adult, Sam I Am accessories
Elephant and Piggie (I love this cute onesie, don’t you?)
Book Character Costumes: F to R
Think of all the characters in fairy tale stories…There are so many good heores and villains. But, anyone from Harry Potter is also a great costume choice. Or what about spiderman Miles Morales?
Since kids love to dress up as their favorite book characters from the most popular book series of all time, Harry Potter, there are lots of fun costume options for bookworms who love this beloved series. See all the ideas below.
Fairy Tales:
Sleeping Beauty / Prince Philip
Goldilocks & the Three Bears
Fancy Nancy (add sunglasses, a feather boa to the dress)
Harry Potter: Hermione, Ron, Luna Lovegood , Newt Scamander, Death Eater *adult size, Dobby *mask, Dolores Umbridge (this pink suit outfit is killer — I might wear this costume next Halloween!), Voldemort adult, Dumbledore, Hagrid adult costume
The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings
Arwen (don’t forget the elf ears, too!)
How to Train Your Dragon Toothless, Hiccup, Astrid
Hunger Games
Knight toddler, child (King Arthur, The Knight and the Dragon, St. George & the Dragon)
Little House on the Prairie (Laura)
Magic Tree House Jack and Annie
Max (Where the Wild Things Are)
*This might be my favorite book character costume on the list. How cute is this?
Miles Morales Spider-Man Adult
(Miles is both a comic book character and a prose book character!)
Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus
Nursery Rhymes: Mother Goose, Little Bo Peep, Humpty Dumpty
Percy Jackson: Camp Half-Blood t-shirt Gladiator Knight Athena
Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Tinker Bell, Peter’s Escaped Shadow
Pigeon mask, Pigeon costume mask
Roald Dahl books: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, The Trenchbull (a favorite book character villain,) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Willy Wonka, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde,
Best Book Character Costumes: S to Z
The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Winnie the Pooh are two favorite book character costume ideas for babies and toddlers — talk about cute!
Shakespeare adult costume
Strange Case of the Origami Yoda
The Very Hungry Caterpillar child, baby
Winnie The Pooh: Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Roo Costume
Witch*see all the books about witches here
Wizard of Oz: Dorothy, Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Wicked Witch, Glinda the Good, Munchkin
Viola Swamp mask, tights, witch dress
What other book character costume ideas do you have?
originally published in 2009, updated each year
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So many great ideas to check out!
These costumes are so, so great! I only wish I had young children (or even grandchildren) I could make some fun costumes for! I’ll have to save this page for when the grandkids start to arrive.
I agree, aren’t these ideas fun!?