Once you’re into the groove of a new year and new term….. to stop parents from relaxing too much…… comes not only war, but a smaller, domestic threat: it’s World Book Day.
Yeah: World Book day. There must be people who love it. The creative parents who, instead of spending their evenings reading books to their kids, suddenly relish having a new artistic challenge to prepare for.
‘I’m so busy at the moment,’ one might say to another, just a little too loudly, in the line for parents evening, ‘but I managed to knock up Queen Jadis of Narnia from a rug we used to have in our lounge, and I happened to have, in my lipstick drawer, just the right shade of Dior rouge!’
Well, if you’re you’re one of those parents, then obviously good luck to you. But be aware that the rest of us might not have a lipstick drawer. And feel not the slightest guilt as we scan the shop-bought outfits in the dressing-up box, trying to figure out which ones can be contrived to look like anything that our kids might have read in a book.
‘Come on Toddler,’ I coax, ‘Pick a Where’s Wally extra! Or alternatively, I can manage whichever kid it is in the Hamish Bigmore books that plays the trumpet. Or how about the Warden from the animals of Farthing Wood? I bet you he’s a nice guy. And he wears your favourite! Anorak and big wellies.’
I even try to appeal to Toddler’s penchant for cross-dressing, but the Paper Bag Princess idea that I found online doesn’t make the cut. Tiddler and Toddler suddenly have strong opinions about who they’re willing – or in Toddler’s case, unwilling – to be.
“I’d be a Goblin from the Warhammer book,’ Toddler allows at last. ‘The Kamikazee Goblin with a ball and chain, or maybe a carriage….. ‘
Calmly, I shatter his expectations by explaining that Warhammer fantasy characters are gaming figures and not – actually – out of a book, except for the Warhammer pamphlet of rules that we have at home. Which doesn’t have any stories in and anyway, I don’t have any green paint. That’s OK. Toddler’s attention has moved on.
Tiddler, however, is harder to argue with. She draws herself up nice and tall: She has decided who she’s going to be this year, Mummy. “I’m going to be Lady Polgara.”
Now: as far as I am concerned. the women of this world must be split into two. The first group do not know who Polgara is. Perhaps they don’t like reading: perhaps they have simply never encountered David Eddings in a second-hand bookstore.
The rest of us, however, want to be her.
Polgara, being a typical female heroine from the eighties and nineties, is beautiful. A brilliant cook, naturally; a healer; a caring Auntie and kick-ass lady Wizard. Every man fancies her, although of course, there’s no arguing with the woman; she can talk nearly anyone into anything, even Kings and Queens. She turns into a snowy owl and flies away hunting by night; she’s infinitely old, but doesn’t look it. However, every character has downfalls and, as it turns out in retrospect, Lady Polgara is actually racist.
How so? Well, in the Belgariad series, different fictional nationalities have their own fictional stereotypes; Tolnedrans are ambitious and mercinary; the Drasnians are notorious cheats and spies. A man’s character is all but decided from his nationality: Rivans are solid and dependable; Chereks warriors and sailors. Murgos are ugly and mean; Thulls are stupid.
Lady Polgara perpetuates these myths and I continually find myself explaining the downside of this to my children, even as I’m reading. I do like reading out loud. I do all the voices. And I pick up on the casual sexism, too: ‘Fancy that, Lady Polgara’s at her favourite saucepan again, having just mended Garion’s cloak. Maybe I don’t want to be her after all. And the men are all fighting battles, gambling, fishing or drunk…..’
‘Yes Mum,’ says Tiddler. ‘So when are you going to dye my hair?’
‘Oh!’ I think. ‘Black and white. I forgot. And she’ll need an amulet. And a blue dress. And a cloak, and…..’
‘Tiddler,’ I say, (to hell with feminist scruples, suddenly), ‘Have you heard of the Sweet Valley twins?’
The Sweet valley Twins, whose adventures I also followed back in the nineties, are blonde, flawless Californian girls with blue eyes. They would just go around in jeans and t-shirts and my daughter, I realise suddenly, looks just like one. But of course, I haven’t exposed my children to those mindless books, in which looks are a source of currency between females. When Tiddler looks blank, I wonder whether I’m irritated or relieved.
Anyway. The school’s stipulations on hair-dye for World Book Day (according to my children; I haven’t checked this) are that it needs to be gone by the following day. So I become one of those committed parents. I spend several hours trailing round shops with my patient friend Helen, looking for black and white dyes that say ‘Wash Out’ on them. Having scanty experience of hair-dying, mostly under the influence, I am probably what most would term a beginner. But I find a couple that look OK and go home, brandishing them in triumph.
Show them to my husband without mentioning how much even cheap hair-dye costs. Now that I look, Tiddler’s hair looks like a forest and takes half an hour and two arguments to brush. I put the stuff on, following the instructions to the letter – unlike the time at college, when…. oh, never mind. Wait half an hour, wash it off and….
It hasn’t worked. That much is immediately obvious. The next morning, to my horror, Tiddler’s hair just looks slightly mucky. The white streak on black that I laboured over for so long is invisible to all but the most careful eye.
As Tiddler’s bottom lip crumples (‘and I let you brush my hair, specially’), I own that even Lady Polgara has down days.
Actually, it’s possible that I shout it. Toddler, meanwhile, has decided that world book day isn’t his thing either, and is campaigning not to go to school; desperate measures win out.
‘Okay Tiddler,’ I say airily. ‘We’ve got poster paint. I’m sure it says ‘washes out’ on the box.’
Tiddler decides quickly that badly-dyed grey is acceptable, after all.
They go to school with grumpy faces again, but they both come home smiling.
World book day, it seems, is powerful like that.
My Body, My Own 