Halloween Books

It is always fun to be festive and read books about the seasons.  Here are some of my family's favorite Halloween books that we are reading this year. 

The Charles Addams Mother Goose by Charles Addams

The Charles Addams Mother Goose is a great collection of Mother Goose rhymes.  It includes all of your favorites like Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and Hickory Dickory Dock.  What makes this such a great Mother Goose collection is the illustrations.  If your child likes scary then this is the Mother Goose for them.  Addams did not change any of the rhymes, but his illustrations of the rhymes show a darker side.  He uses his familiar drawings of forlorn faces and dark eyes to depict our favorites.  The farmer's wife is solemnly cutting of mice tails with her electric knife, Little Miss Muffet's spider is gigantic and a witch is stirring pease porridge.  What a great Mother Goose collection to have, especially for Halloween time!

Bone Soup by Cambria Evans

I have blogged about the classic folktale Stone Soup but now I have found a spooky fun Halloween version of the tale. In this version of Stone Soup a little skeleton named Finnegan sets off with his eating spoon, eating stool and hungry mouth to find a Halloween feast.  When the town's creatures hear that Finnegan is on his way they all go into hiding and take their food with them.  When Finnegan reaches the town and sees that it is deserted and there is no feast he fills the biggest pot he can find with water and sets it to boil.  You can see in the pictures that the towns creatures are curiously watching Finnegan first from behind closed windows.  Then as he drops an old bone into the boiling water and sings, "Bone soup is what I make. A magic bone is all it takes.  Boil it long and add some spice. Bone soup tastes so very nice" the town's creatures open their windows to watch Finnegan.  Eventually the town's creatures join Finnegan around the pot and help him make bone soup by sharing their stewed eyeballs, bat wings and frog legs.  Just like in the original story of bone soup Finnegan teaches the towns creatures the importance of generosity!

Pumpkin Trouble by Jan Thomas

Halloween doesn't always have to be spooky and scary, sometimes it can be funny! Jan Thomas delights us again with her simple humor in Pumpkin Trouble.  Duck decides to make a jack-o-lantern for Halloween and falls into the pumpkin.  He begins looking around for help. When Mouse and Pig see a pumpkin walking around they think that Duck is a pumpkin monster.  They being to run away from the monster, Duck follows because he is also scared of the pumpkin monster.  When Duck runs into the barn and the pumpkin smashes into pieces, Pig and Mouse declare that Duck battled the pumpkin monster and won.  This book will have your preschoolers laughing out loud for sure!

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

Another Halloween classic. What happens when you take a witch, her boom and several animals?  Well the broom breaks of course.  But that is not even the worst part.  All the animals fall into a icky, mucky swamp, but the witch runs into a dragon who wants to eat her.  The animals come to the rescue of the witch by disguising themselves as a swamp monster with 4 heads.  When the dragon hears the swamp monster say, "Back off that's our witch" he is terrified and runs off leaving the witch unharmed.  Then together the witch and her animal friends brew a potion to make a brand new broom with room for everyone.  As a bonus Amazon Prime has the story animated and it is super cute and fun to watch!

What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss even gets in the spooky spirit with his book What Was I Scared Of?  In this Seuss story a man goes for a walk and sees a pair of pants, with nothing in them.  Of course he was not scared, not even when the pants started running.  Then the man kept running into the pants different places.  Now the man was scared.  He tried running away and hiding from the pants but again he found them.  He was so scared, but then he realized that the pants were scared also because, "I began to see that I was just as strange to them as they were to me." From that moment on the man and the empty pants were friends, because he knew there was nothing to be scared of.  A fun book to use to teach our little ones who may be scared of some aspects of Halloween.

For some more fun Halloween books check out these posts:

Bunnicula
The Little Old Lady...
Beware
Click, Clack, Boo!
Leonardo the Terrible Monster
Funny Bones

Happy Reading!

Halloween Throwback Thursday

Happy Halloween!  What better way to celebrate than by leaving white vegetables around the house/classroom and reading Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe!

Bunnicula is the story of a new pet brought into the Monroe's home.  The pet is part bunny, part vampire but the only one who knows this is the Monroe's pet cat Chester.  Through out the entire book each morning the Monroe's are finding white vegetable sitting around their kitchen.  They have no idea what is going on, but Chester does.  Chester DOES NOT want a vampire bunny in his house so he plots different ways to get rid of Bunnicula.  Chester tries to to Harold, the family dog, to help him get rid of the bunny but Harold is not much help and ends up befriending Bunnicula.

The mention of vampires, Dracula and scary vampire bunnies is sure to raise the hair on a child's neck.  To make it even better, be sure to leave some white vegetables laying around the house tomorrow morning!

Happy Reading!
Laura

Halloween 2007

My Favorite

Today I am going to share with you my favorite Halloween read aloud, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams.

This book is great for several reasons, I am only going to name a few. First, it is great because of the plot.  The book tells the story of a little old lady minding her own business on a walk through the woods.  On the walk she encounters different articles of clothing floating in the air trying to scare her, to which she replies, "You can't scare me!" After each encounter she starts to walk a little bit faster towards her home.  In the end all of the clothing and the jack-o-lantern knock on her door and she cleverly uses them to make a scarecrow!

The second reason this book is great is because of the repetition and the sound effects.  It only takes the little old lady meeting a "pair of shoes that go stomp, stomp" to get the entire group of children you are reading to to join in.  They love saying the sound effects and even making motions to go along with the book. 

Last, this book has endless activities, crafts and games to go with it.  My first grade class loved acting out this book.  I would bring in shoes, pants, shirts, hats, gloves and a jack-o-lantern and they would use those props to act out this little story. 

If this book is not already on your shelf pick it up TODAY!  Halloween is tomorrow and there is not much time left for Halloween read alouds!

Happy Reading!

Laura

Beware!

Today I want to share with your a collection of scary stories.  These are perfect for reading around a campfire or as a Halloween read aloud.

Beware by R.L. Stine is a collection of some of his all-time favorite stories.  Not all of the stories are written by Stine himself.  This collection features poems by Shel Silverstein, a story by Ronald Dahl, as well as the famous poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service.

One of the stories in the collection is called "The Girl Who Stood on a Grave" by Alvin Schwartz.  In the story a group of friends is talking about how if you stand on top of someone's grave they will reach through the ground, grab you and pull you into the grave with them.  One girl in the group of friends did not believe the story so they dared her to go stand on a grave.  They gave her a knife and told her to stick it into one of the graves so they knew she had been there.  Bravely, the young girl went and stood on a grave.  When nothing happened she stuck the knife into the grave and went to leave, but she couldn't!  Something was holding onto her.  She began screaming and then fell to the ground.  When her friends came to check on her they noticed she had stuck the knife through her skirt.  It was only the knife holding her skirt to the grave.

These short stories and poems are perfect to share with young children, probably 3rd grade and up.  Most of the stories end in some kind of humor or irony. Some can be creepy, but not scary enough to give nightmares to anyone.

Check this one out, especially if you have a young one that enjoys the scarier things in life!

Happy Reading!
Laura

It's Finally Here!

It is finally Halloween week!  This week is all about jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins, goblins and ghosts!  That means it is time to bring out some scary read alouds.  I will be sharing some of my favorite Halloween read alouds all this week!  Please post your favorites in the comments, especially if I left them off my list!

This week we are going to start with a Halloween version of a children's favorite, Click, Clack, Boo! by Doreen Cronin.  We all know the troubles that Farmer Brown has on a daily basis at his farm.  Read this book to find out what kind of nonsense the animals cook up on Halloween. 

Farmer Brown DOES NOT like Halloween.  He just wants to be left alone, but not his animals in the barn.  They are ready to PARTY!  The cow is dressed as a skeleton, the chickens are ghosts and the sheep are witches.  We are still wondering what that infamous duck will be dressed as.  The animals are getting ready for the party crunch, crunching through the leaves, tap, tapping on the window, creaking when the door opens.  Farmer Brown does not know about the party and all he hears is scary Halloween noises.  When he checks out the window he sees a dark creature under the tree.  Frightened, Farmer Brown runs to his bed and hides under the covers.  The creature starts making its way toward the house until there is a tap, tap, tap on Farmer Brown's door.  A scared Farmer Brown holds tight to his blankets until he hears a "quack, quack, quackle?" Confused he gets out of bed and runs to the front door.  Where the candy was is now a note "Halloween Party at the Barn," it says.  Farrmer Brown runs to the party and wins the award for best costume!

If you child likes any of the Doreen Cronin books then this one is a must to read to get in the Halloween spirit. 

Don't forget to share your favorite Halloween book in the comments!

Happy Reading!

Laura

Halloween 2008