7 Literary Baby Costumes for Halloween

Baby Shakespeare
Put your baby in a black onesie. Next, use a face paint crayon to draw on some facial hair—pick your favorite Shakespeare depiction for inspiration, and add a mustache and a Van Dyke or full beard. Craft a proper Elizabethan collar using a stack of coffee filters, cut to size. Finally, snap a photo before your baby rips off the collar and eats it.

Baby Amy Tan
Style your baby as Amy Tan with a sleek, black geometric bob wig, bright red lipstick, and a chunky jade necklace. Dress her in red for joy and luck.

Baby Hemingway
Did any of your relatives give your baby a thick, uncomfortable-looking cable knit sweater for a present? It will be perfect for this costume. Pop your baby in the sweater, add a white beard—perhaps from a Santa costume—and a manly accessory—a pipe, a fishing rod, the mounted head of some animal. It was a good, clean costume, a true costume. The truest costume baby would ever wear.

Baby James Joyce
Slick your baby’s hair back. Add a bow tie, an eye patch, round glasses, mustache, and the soul of an Irish modernist. Bonus points if your baby looks a little despondent in this getup.

Baby Flannery O’Connor
Cat’s eye glasses and 1950’s style dress will turn your baby into the wry queen of Southern lit. If your baby has curly hair, comb it into the classic Flannery ‘do, pinned back at the sides, curly on the bottom. Accessorize with a stuffed peacock.

Baby Toni Morrison
Pick the era of Toni to style your baby after based on your baby’s hair. If she has braids or curls, model her on current, grand dame Toni by pulling her hair back and dusting it with some flour. Add an understated sweater and a chunky, colorful necklace. If your baby has poofy hair, style her as dashing 1970’s Toni. Complete the look with a golden Nobel Prize medal.

Baby Marianne Moore
If your baby is the poetic sort, dress her up like famed modernist poet Moore, who was known to put on a tricorn hat and black cape for photo ops.