AJHS holds fun and colorful 'Dare To Wear' cosplay parade to launch Teen Read Week 2024

As part of the Ateneo Junior High School's observance of Teen Read Week, the AJHS held a parade of students, teachers, and staff dressed up as book characters on the morning of 14 November 2024. (Watch video playing above.) 

Each class was asked to choose a representative (or a group of representatives) who would be part of the parade, and dress up as a character from a book, although characters from movies were also accepted. The chosen character should be able to represent a value demonstrated by St. Stanislaus Kostka, SJ, whose feast day was celebrated in the AJHS on 13 November 2024.  

In my classes' case, they chose Alvin and the Chipmunks, Catbus (from "My Neighbor Totoro"), and Crazy Dave (from "Plants vs Zombies"). I'm not actually certain whether they were able to pull it off, since I wasn't able to meet with them properly, given the class suspension caused by typhoon Nika. Still, the students from my classes assured me that they gave it their best effort.

Meanwhile, a number of teachers, especially those from the Arts and English subject areas, dressed up as their own favored characters. The Arts subject area appeared to have a specific theme, that of being characters from the graphic novel series Trese, with the main character Alexandra Trese, her body guards the Kambal, Crispin and Basilio, as well as the fiery Santelmo. The English subject area didn't have a theme in mind, and dressed up as they wished, with a motley mix of Coraline, Tintin, the Lorax, Chopper (from "One Piece"), Gru, as well as 2 Vs from Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta. A small group of teachers dressed up as characters from Wicked/the Wizard of Oz. 

In my case, since I was a bit pressed for time, I decided to simply redo my Genma Saotome role from the anime/manga series Ranma 1/2. Using my judo uniform and a blue bandanna, and borrowing a stuffed panda from one of my colleagues, I once more took on the role of Ranma's father. 

During the actual parade, I saw that one of the computer teachers used his tyrannosaur body suit, to the great delight of the grade 7 students, whose squeals of delight were a lot higher pitched than before, thanks to the addition of the girls to the grade 7 batch. My colleague who played Tintin and I were right behind the tyrannosaur, so the rapt response was rather deafening. 

All in all, it was a great success, as the students hopefully got a better appreciation of the books that are out there. A second hope is that it would encourage them to read for leisure more.