STUDENTS dressed as vampires and other monsters took over Murwillumbah today to celebrate the International Year of Reading.

This morning Murwillumbah East Public School students read books such as Where the Wild Things Are then enjoyed games based on their reading, Year 2 teacher Sarah Robinson said.

"Basically, because it's the International Year of Reading, we're trying to push reading to the students," the relieving assistant principal said.

"My class did the Monster Mash dance after reading Where the Wild Things Are."

She said she was impressed by parents clearly going "out of their way" with costumes for the kindergarten, Year 1 and 2 students.

"I don't think a lot of people know about the year of reading, so I thought we should do something.

"We have lots of readers at our school and a very positive Home Reading program.

"Students get a certificate when they get up into 100 reads.

"Reading is a good grounding for high school, where the kids may have to read some things they might not be particularly interested in."

Ms Robinson said her own childhood favourites were books by Enid Blyton and anything about ponies.

"I still read all the Harry Potter series in order to keep in touch with what kids are reading.

"We did have a lot of students dressed as vampires and I hope they aren't reading Twilight, because it's a bit advanced for them.

"They were very excited by the activities, and hopefully they'll all go home and read over the weekend."

Famous children's books:

• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein;
• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown;
• Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss;
• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judy and Ronald Barrett;
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle;
• Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt;
• The Lorax by Dr Seuss;
• Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton.