{"id":329328,"date":"2026-03-05T00:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329328\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T00:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:39:15","slug":"its-not-meant-to-be-fancy-dress-parents-say-world-book-day-has-lost-the-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329328\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s not meant to be fancy dress\u2019: Parents say World Book Day has lost the plot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nOriginally created to promote reading for young people, World Book Day has morphed into something much bigger. Niamh O\u2019Reilly talks to parents and teachers about the extra pressures commercialisation has brought\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The costumes have become more important than the books on World Book Day. Photo: Jonathan Brady\/PA Images via Getty\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tyImages_1247609398.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">The costumes have become more important than the books on World Book Day. Photo: Jonathan Brady\/PA Images via Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Once upon a time, there was an event called World Book Day (Thursday, March 5), an annual occasion that aimed to promote the enjoyment of books for young people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The intent behind the day was noble: to put a book in the hands of every child in the land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Originally created to promote reading for young people, World Book Day has morphed into something much bigger. Niamh&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77748,93,61,60,898],"class_list":["post-329328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-daily-features","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}