Costume dramas are all cons and no prose

MY DAUGHTERS are nearly 35 and 38 years-old, and the words “World Book Day” still send a shiver down my spine. The whole thing was a grade-A pain in the rear. I read English Literature at university and my father devoured Zola in a book-lined room he called “the study”. I could not be a more fervent reader, but even 30 years ago, WBD was nothing but a souped-up fancy-dress competition.

Some parents – those who were dab hands with plywood and staple guns – aced it, while those who lacked the haute couture skills needed to transform a wriggly seven-year-old into Mrs Pepperpot were doomed.

The time has come for parents and teachers alike to bin the dressing up and focus on the quality of the literature. So ahead of WBD on March 7, let’s stop stretching the word “book” to mean any dross sandwiched between hard covers and start insisting on well-written prose or poetry designed to ignite the imagination.

Evict the Disney characters – “No, Georgina you may not attend as Flounder from The Little Mermaid” – and banish vacuous TV franchises: “Timothy, Teletubbies books are merchandise so you may not pitch up as Tinky Winky. Tell mummy a Womble would be far more becoming and she’ll find them in the exquisitely executed stories by Elisabeth Beresford MBE.”

THE point is that if parents don’t have to worry about fashioning a Dalek outfit out of the curtains, they can focus on choosing a book worth reading. There’s nothing wrong with the many pourings from the nib of David Walliams, nor anything awry with Horrible Henry or for that matter Harry Potter. But wouldn’t it be glorious if those in charge “screwed their courage to the sticking place”, as it says in Macbeth, and took a stand against the usual obligatory and obvious choices?

Let’s prescribe Arthur Ransome’s Swallows And Amazons, E. Nesbit’s The Story Of The Treasure Seekers, Richmal Crompton’s hilarious Just William books and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women instead of cartoon characters.

Let’s introduce the juiciest paragraphs of Dickens, the tastiest gobbets by Shakespeare and the bliss of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes.

Sensible schools are already revolting against the fancy-dress charade. The costs of costumes are ruinously high and parental stress levels are already off the charts.

Heads say that cosy clothes must be worn so pupils can curl up comfortably and read the day away. All they need now are piles of beguiling books to whet their appetites and test their mettle.

■ ONE in eight of us regrets not marrying for money. My mother used to assert with confidence: “Vanessa, it’s as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor man.” I beg to differ.

Rich people are coated in a concrete layer of confidence. Their bank balances prove they made the right decisions in life and those with overdrafts made the wrong ones.

Money talks, and what it has to say comes with unattractive arrogance mixed with even less desirable complacence. Rich chaps may be better dressed but falling in love with them is a mission I’ve never accomplished.