Cosplay Day

As part of our programming for School Library Month, we held a cosplay contest at school today.

We had to put some parameters in place to appease our admin's and ensure that it would not turn into a Halloween-esque free-for-all, especially since it was on the last day before Spring Break, and the students were already pretty riled up. The rule was that if students wanted to participate in the cosplay, the characters they dressed up as had to be derived from BOOKS.

As much as I appreciate the wonderful spectrum of cosplay that ranges from Star Trek to Disney Princesses, we wanted to emphasize libraries and literacy. Maybe if it catches on, in the future we could try to have a cosplay event with more room for interpretation.

We wanted to show the students that cosplay does not have to be expensive or impractical; essentially, it's a way for us to express our love for characters and stories that have impacted us and contributed to our identities. We chose to dress up as characters from the book series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. My co-worker and I both enjoyed that series, and the movies (well, at least the first movie) alot, and we both felt like we could relate to certain characters. She chose to represent Lena Kaligaris, and I wanted to be Tibby Rollins.

Tibby's the rebel of the group. She tends to be cynical and sarcastic, but underneath her angsty exterior, she is very sensitive.

In the first movie, she has blue streaks in her hair, so I purchased some 'spray on' color to match.

And of course, my co-worker and I both made sure our jeans reflected the spirit of the Sisterhood:

She used an old pair she already had, and I bought my pair at Salvation Army for $2.50.

Cosplay doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't have to be flashy (though it can be, if you want it to be!).

We only had a handful of students participate, but the boy who won the contest dressed as a character from the Attack on Titan book series. He made his own props from duct tape, water bottles, and foam core. We also had a girl dress up as a character she created, and writes short stories about. And of course, there were more than a few Harry Potter fans, too.

I think low-key cosplay contests like this are a great way to introduce the concept to kids, and there are so many possibilities for how to tailor this type of fandom for different ages and audiences.