Easy costume: Mr McGee

If you are looking for an easy Book Week fix, this Mr McGee costume can be cobbled together from things in your own wardrobe. It's from Pamela Allen's popular picture book, Mr McGee And The Blackberry Jam and it's as easy as 1-2-3.

What you need:

• black bowler hat
• 50cm of thick red ribbon or scarf
• red jacket or blazer
• light purple jeans (not essential)
• black belt
• white T-shirt
• jam jar
• black marker pen

Number of players:

Activity:

Mr McGee is a dapper gent. Use the black marker pen to draw buttons and a collar onto the white T-shirt. (Alternatively, you could use a white collared shirt, if you have one.)

Now jazz up his black bowler hat with a piece of red ribbon.  (You can find cheap bowler hats at discount stores.)

Add his jazzy red jacket – we used a women's cropped blazer.

Add purple or lilac jeans.

Put a black belt on the jeans, to keep up Mr McGee's sartorial standards.

Draw on his dapper, pencil thin moustache.

Add jam jar. (One from the pantry will do, but you could also make it extra stylish but adding a scrap of red checked fabric and writing, "Blackberry Jam" in black marker pen, just to make the book reference clear.)