Celebrate Halloween! If the kids are on a post-trick or
treating sugar high, lure them into a bedtime read along with one of these
spooky favorite stories.
Small shivers (Age Pre K – 6)
This rhyming charmer casts a spell of fun as Peter the cat
carves a winning jack of lantern.
Go Away, Big Green
Monster! By Ed Emberley
Emberley’s colorful die cut masterpiece will elicit giggles
as kids help “make” the monster with every turn of the page, then make the
monster disappear by turning pages to remove his “big yellow eyes” and “purple
scraggly hair.” At the end, kids will be empowered and tickled as they tell the
Big Green Monster “Go away. And don’t come back! Until I say so.”
The Hallo-wiener by
Dav Pilkey
Oscar the “wiener dog” gets no respect. The loveable
dachshund longs to be something scary for Halloween, but he returns home from
obedience school to find that his mother has already bought his costume – a
giant hot dog bun topped with mustard. The neighborhood kids make fun of him,
and his costume slows him down so much there’s no candy left by the time he
gets to trick or treat. But when the kids are terrorized by a monster, Oscar
saves the day. Hilarious puns and sly nods to adults (Oscar’s teacher is
reading a book called Dogs Who Hate Fleas
and the Fleas that Love Them) make this sheer Halloween fun.
Books for midsize monsters (Age 7-10)
Bunnicula by Deborah and James
Howe
A vampire bunny? The Monroe family finds a tiny bunny at a
screening of the movie Dracula and
takes him home. But the family’s other pets, Chester the cat and Harold the
dog, think there’s something odd about the bunny. His pointy fangs. His spots,
which make a cape pattern. The white tomato they find – sucked dry of all its
juices. Is Bunnicula a vegetarian vampire? Scaredy dog Harold sums up their
worries: “Today vegetables. Tomorrow, the world!” This popular series spawned
many sequels including the brilliantly titled Howliday Inn and The Celery
Stalks at Midnight.
Wiley and Grampa #1:
Grampa Vs. Dracula at the Monster Truck
Spectacular by Joe Scroggs
Hilarious deadpan humor shines in this, the first of the
Wiley and Grampa Creature Features series.
Grampa promises to take Wiley to the Monster Truck Spectacular.
Of course it’s on Halloween. Of course an F5 tornado is bearing down. Of course
Grandma doesn’t want them to go until their chores are finished. And of course the Mudsucker Monster Truck
turns out to be a real live vampire vehicle. Unstoppable Grandpa must battle
Dracula (who is dressed as what can only be described as a Transylvanian Elvis)
while Wiley takes on the terrifying truck. Southern fried wisecracks and puns
galore make this a must read.
Yuyi Morales’ charming Just
In Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book is
a year round treat. Gullible skeleton Senor Calaveras is tricked into
bringing Grandma Beetle not just one gift, but one for every letter of the
alphabet. Kids will laugh seeing Zelmiro the ghost fool the not-so-scary skeleton,
who is rendered in Morales’ award winning illustrations as a dead but dapper
man-about-town.
Spine chillers (Age 10-adult)
The Skeleton Man
by Joseph Bruchac
Beware! Bruchac’s take on this traditional tale is a slow
burn scarefest.
When Molly’s parents go missing, Social Services places her
with a great-uncle she never knew she had. His bizarre behavior – he locks her
in room every night – and appearance remind her of the legend her Native
American parents told her of the Skeleton Man, a cannibal spirit who traps
humans and fattens them up before he eats them. The adults at Molly’s school
think she’s overly imaginative. Can gutsy Molly save herself from the
Skeleton Man? This book should come with a warning label: Unputdownable! It’s a
bit too gruesome for younger children, and the suspense will keep every reader up
well past bedtime.
The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
This Newbery Award winner starts with a truly terrifying
scene. A family is murdered by an assassin called “a man named Jack” – everyone
except the baby of the family, who has toddled out the front door and into a
nearby cemetery. The inhabitants of the cemetery raise the boy they call Bod,
for Nobody Owens, and become his family and protectors. But Bod must eventually
rejoin the living, and his path inevitably will cross with Jack’s. Magical,
heartwarming, and often downright frightening, The Graveyard Book is a modern classic.
Frankenstein Makes a
Sandwich by Adam Rex
They may be monsters, but they’ve got their problems, too.
Rex’s clever and occasionally gross poetic take on monsters from Dracula (who
doesn’t know he’s been walking around with spinach in his fangs all night) to
the Mummy (who won’t go to his eternal rest without some milk and cookies) will
brighten Halloween spirits. A highlight of the book is the poor Phantom of the
Opera, who can’t compose any more because he can’t get the world’s most frightening
song out of his head:
It’s a small world after all
Angry cursing fills the hall
Now he’s crawling up the wall.
It’s a small, small world.
Do you have a favorite scary book?
