Year five student from wearing his Book Week costume in the playground for disturbing reason

A young boy was not allowed to wear his Book Week costume by his school because he feared that it would offend other students.

His furious father Kevin told reporter Tom Elliott from the Melbourne radio station 3AW that his son was told by his teacher that he was not allowed to dress up as the main character from Morris Gleitzman’s novel Once.

The fifth-grader was inspired to dress up as Felix, a Jewish boy hiding from the Nazis in Poland in 1942, after reading the book in class.

In the book, Felix is ​​forced to wear a yellow Star of David. The teacher was annoyed that the student was wearing the star as well.

The Nazis forced Jews to wear an armband with the yellow Star of David during their time in power to identify them as their religion.

Kevin said his son’s teacher “had no problem with the boy wearing the full suit in class,” but he was not allowed to wear it in school or on the playground.

His son was told that wearing the full costume “could be offensive or create negative emotions, which was a cause for concern.”

Kevin claimed that the final decision was not made by his teacher, but by a senior staff member.

“One of the biggest concerns for us is the censorship that’s been applied to this. It’s quite disturbing,” he told Elliott.

The father pointed out that there were students younger than his son who dressed up as unsavory sports stars.

“They’ve been guilty of a lot of missteps, both on and off the field,” Kevin said.

The young boy wanted to dress up as the main character from Morris Gleitzman’s Once (pictured), who was forced to wear a Star of David while in hiding from the Nazis in Poland in 1942.

Elliott told Kevin that the radio station would contact the school to find out what had happened.

Book Week is one of the biggest events in Australian schools, with students dressing up as their favourite book character.