Peek-a Boo! Written & Illustrated by Nina Laden Chronicle Books     8/01/2015 978-1-4521-3396-6 10 pages     Age Infant—3 “Peek-a goo? Peek-a brew? Peek-a booo! “In this hi-scare-ious follow-up to the bestselling board books Peek-a Who? And Peek-a Zoo!, Nina Laden turns her playful eye (and wear) to spooky Halloween sounds. Read the clue …

There once was an old woman who possessed a remarkable “green thumb.” Flowers bloomed, trees bore fruit, the  grass was always green on her small half an acre lot…. and yet the land that surrounded her oasis was barren, dry and void of life. The only interruption in the landscape was the lifeless and cumbersome machinery poised to devour the small Eden she had tenderly cared for.

The man who spearheaded the conspiracy, had many times been dismissed. In his gluttony, he conceived a plan to torture the woman by detaching a part her anatomy each time she denied him access to her property. The intent was not to kill, but to terrify.

The first surprise encounter resulted in the loss of a thumb.

When the ambulance arrived to hasten the woman to the hospital for medical treatment, they found her drenched in blood still tending her garden amidst her great pain. Sadly, the woman died en route to the hospital.

While the villain in this evil ambush remained anxious about the woman’s death, the  glee in his victory absorbed any thoughts of humanity he  had left.

As he surveyed his newly acquired property, he became aware of a  sound.  A familiar mumbling, a quiet sing song voice of adoration. As he moved into the garden he found her… busily  tending to herself in the garden. “You see” she said  “Everything I touch grows…. even me ……..”

Adapted from a story first shown on the television series The Night Gallery, to read the original story, Green Fingers, which is so much better, by RC Cook go Here
Beware it’s a spooky one!

To view the Night Gallery Episode go HERE

Young readers looking for reinvented, well-known characters and a light-hearted romp of a read will no doubt enjoy Once Upon a Zombie.

This has been a strange week. I love commenting on others’ blogs and have actually gotten better about it, taking more time to view and read those I love and new ones I come across. But now there is an eerie creature confounding me everywhere I go. My comments will not appear on most Wordpress.com blogs, …

For the last few weeks, the crickets in Philadelphia have begun playing at night. This is the signal for the end of Summer Reading, the time to begin planning back-to-school visits, and the time to start planning a haunted house.

Haunted houses can be easily created, relatively inexpensive, and a fantastic draw that remind community members that the library is vibrant and exciting. They can also be nightmares for staff and patrons if they’re not planned and executed properly. A “well-planned” haunted house does not have to be an “expensive” haunted house.

Floorplans are your friends

The first time I created a haunted house for my branch, I was at a location that had a very large meeting room. This was a blessing and a curse because we had room to do things… and we also had room to fill. Because the neighborhood was excited for the event, I had to plan it out properly. Thankfully, I had a fantastic security guard, Dan Ross, who loved the idea as much as I did.

Dan and I created a simple floor plan of our meeting room space to guide us while we brainstormed. The floorplan gave us a bird’s eye view of the room, which allowed us to see where volunteers would be located, how evenly the scares were spaced apart and where problematic areas might exist. Because we knew that the room would be dark, we needed to eliminate as many “blind spots” as possible. Here is the floor plan from our second year:
Sitting down for 30 minutes and planning saved countless hours of moving and adjusting plans. It also allowed us to know how many volunteers and staff members we would need to operate the gags and keep an eye on the tweens and teens entering the haunted house.

Don’t reinvent the jack-o-lantern

As Dan and I planned, we knew we needed outside advice. Thankfully, Philadelphia has a very active and highly dedicated staff of Children’s Librarians who are always willing to offer advice and support. Librarians who had been running haunted houses for years offered advice. We reduced the group size patrons in the haunted house from five to three. We also had staff members guide the groups. Usually the after school leader or I would walk with the groups to create a “safe” person if things became too scary.

We also went online to various websites to ask advice from professionals and amateurs who ran their own haunted houses. Here are a few places I visited and sought advice:

Haunted World Fright Forum

Haunt Forum

Halloween Forum

In later years, I also started following Halloween-enthusiasts on Pinterest. This was also a great resource for easy DIY projects.
An early suggestion from a haunted house forum became one of our favorite scares. A ghoul on a broom handle “flew out” from behind a fake wall, while the volunteer lowering her screamed. We named the ghoul Cindy, and she’s been in every haunted house since.

Choose your volunteers wisely.

I began canvasing for volunteers at the beginning of the school year and insisted on speaking with parents or guardians before event set-up began. Because the holiday is not celebrated by everyone, I wanted to ensure that parents knew exactly what the eager teens were volunteering to do.

All volunteers were told that secrecy was paramount to the success of the haunted house. They could tell as many lies about what was going to happen as they liked, but they couldn’t reveal any of the actual scares.

Scares require all six senses

Sure, there are only five senses normally – Aliki’s My Five Senses didn’t lie to you. But when it comes to haunted houses, there are really six. The thing that separates an okay haunted house from an excellent haunted house is the sense of anticipation. The feeling of “something is about to happen” needs to always be present to make your haunted house memorable. No matter what your budget, this can be obtained. A dark room and a few strobe lights will do it.

An effective scare can be created with dollar store bats spray-painted with neon colors and hung near a black light. We “upped” the scare value in later years by hiding volunteers behind fake walls. Each volunteer had a can of condensed air that they would use to move the bats. As people walk past, the back of their head would also be sprayed with air. One bat attached to a black pole provided additional movement.
Another easy scare involved dollar store water guns. Volunteers dressed in all black hid behind a table full of rubber snakes. As groups of patrons walked through with a guide, they were told that they snakes did not bite, but they occasionally spit. This phrase was the cue for the volunteers to squirt patrons in the face with water.

Speed is the key to success

The first year we ran our haunted house, over 300 people from our neighborhood came. We allotted an hour and a half for the program, but thankfully volunteers stayed until everyone was able to go through once. We quickly realized that future haunted houses would require speedy walk-throughs. Some of our great scares like the Witch’s Sarcophagus had to be dropped because they took too long.

The Witch’s Sarcophagus was a staff favorite and we were sorry to see it go. Starting on the right, patrons reached inside each opening of the sarcophagus. Her hair was oily angel hair pasta, the eyes were peeled grapes, and the brains were gelatin and cottage cheese. A volunteer hid inside and grabbed patrons when they reached into the “Hands.” As sorry as we were to see this go, we knew this was better themed for a program and not a haunted house.

Our goal was to get a person through the haunted house in less than 3 minutes. We also limited the number of times a person could enter the haunted house. By a third trip, many ‘tweens knew where the scares were coming from – and tried to scare the volunteers back. Obviously, this is problematic, so everyone could enter two times only. After the first visit, everyone’s right hand was stamped. After the second visit, the left hand was stamped. Once someone had two stamps, they knew they could not enter the house again.

Inexpensive is not the same as cheap

When Dan and I first started the haunted house program, we had a budget of $100 from our friends group. Because the budget was small, we had to improvise. We created fake walls by hanging black garbage bags connected with shipping tape from the ceiling. We’ve used the wall design every year since. They are easily assembled by volunteers, can be reused, and they ripple slightly when people walked. They created the perfect ambiance for the house.
The room looked chaotic during set-up, but there was a system in place. Our other big purchases the first year were strobe lights and a scary music soundtrack. If you use strobe lights or fog machines, always advertise it on all fliers and announcements so people with health concerns are aware of the effects.

Items from around the branch were frequently repurposed for the haunted house. A desk fan hidden behind a tombstone powered Tiffani, our graveyard ghost. She was made from PVC tubing, garbage bags, plastic wrap and green plastic table cloths. A neighborhood wig shop donated the Styrofoam head, and a patron donated the wig (from an old Halloween costume.)

Advertising is your friend

Fliers advertising the Haunted House were distributed to the local schools in early October. Local businesses in our neighborhood were also asked to display fliers in their windows. When Dan and I began, we had an age limit. We dropped it in later years because many parents wanted to bring younger children through the haunted house.
We also used our Facebook page to advertise the ghouls moving into the library. Absurd pictures advertised the ghouls slowly moving into the library in the weeks before the haunted house was set up. Each picture featured the caption “There’s something for everyone at the Library.”
As wonderful as our advertisements are, a tween with a big mouth is worth 1,000 fliers. Let your ‘tweens know that you’re planning to scare the pants off of them, and they’ll let the entire neighborhood know.

Never stop planning.

Over the years, we collected items for the haunted house. After a roof leak, roofers left a large roll of clear plastic at our branch. We used it to create a corridor of shredded hanging sheets for people to walk through inside the haunted house.

Items from dollar stores, yard sales, and staff members’ house cleanings were used to enhance the atmosphere of the Haunted House.

Taking a vacation day on November 1st and hitting local stores is a great way to find discounted Halloween Supplies.

I hope this inspires you to plan your own Haunted House. It takes some planning to run smoothly, but it was always my favorite program throughout the year.

(All photos courtesy of Guest Blogger)

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Christopher Brown is a the Curator of the Children’s Literature Research Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia.  Chris is a  former Children’s Librarian, who served many communities in Philadelphia.  He received his MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 and his MA from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2013.  For more information about the Children’s Literature Research Collection, please visit us at http://libwww.freelibrary.org/collections/collectionDetail.cfm?id=3

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

The post Turning Your Library into a Haunted House appeared first on ALSC Blog.

If you’re looking for a good fantasy book to transition from the young adult genre into the new adult genre, Michael Phillip Cash’s Witches Protection Program is your next read.

It’s interesting to me how some ideas take time to marinate, while others click right away. The Halloween Circus concept came late last year after the Quest For The Ore Crystals. The story concept was entirely different at the time. After a while, the project went to the back burner until recently. Out of nowhere the genie hit me on the head and I scripted the first draft of Halloween Circus.

One of the fun parts for me is the creation of the cover of a new project. Who knows if this cover will stick or not, but it was enjoyable to work on. Check out the time-lapse video below and let me know your thoughts. Ciao.

Here’s the final image from this session:

I meant to have a new blog post in January, but after doing Knott’s and going to see family, I was a bit worn out to be honest. But that is neither here nor there, I have a few shows coming up soon, plus working on new art along with commissions. Without further ado, let us begin with some shows.

Long Beach Comic Expo is coming up on February 28 and March 1st at the Long Beach Convention Center. I love doing show and hope to see everyone there.

Then it is off to do the 3rd Annual Spook Show on March 7th at the Halloween Club in La Mirada. I did this show last year and had a blast; great music, horror, and food.Finally I will be ending March with two big shows. First up is Monsterpalooza on March 27th-29th at the Marriott Burbank Hotel and Convention Center. Well I won’t be there, but Shawn will be there representing me. So please stop by and say hello to him.And the reason I won’t be there is because I shall be going to Emerald City Comicon on March 27th-29th for my second year at the Washington State Convention Center. I had an amazing time last year and can’t wait to go back, maybe this time I will get a chance to look around. Now for a quick look at a new piece I have of a dark fairy with wings and horns. She playfully sits on a stone block in front of a doorway. Is she here to stop you from entering or to entice you to your doom? Available as a print at my store.That is it for now, I am off to pack up for the shows. Take care and keep creating.

–Diana

The post Short blog to let you know I am alive… appeared first on Diana Levin Art.

Hope you had a happy Halloween. Ours was lots of fun, and thankfully, the cold and rain held off until right when we were all ready to go in anyway.

This year, I only made one costume, since my daughter only needed a thrifted dress for her “diva” outfit. Our son, seven, wanted to be a bald eagle. He has a thing for birds of prey. At one point it seemed his visions were never going to match up to reality, but in the end, both of us were happy with how it turned out.

It’s made from four thrifted items: brown jammy pants (unaltered), long-sleeved brown T-shirt (sized down), brown henley shirt (cut open and scalloped for the wings), and the cut-off top of a fleece hoodie (sized down and scalloped for feathers). My son made talons made of yellow foam and cardboard. He also made the foam beak, which he attached to a pre-bought plain white eye mask. I tried to convince him to just attach a beak to the hood, but he was having none of that.

I thought he did a great job making eagle poses here. For more semi-homemade costumes from previous years, click here.

Meanwhile, I’ve been slog, slog, slogging through my novel rewrite. Also, enjoying the fact that Bletchley Circle has new episodes. Woo!

Jo Ellen has the world's best 45-rpm record collection. Since I can remember, I've sprawled across her big bed when she's in her room doing homework or talking on the phone to her girlfriends, and Jo Ellen has let me play her records, as long as I don't get fingerprints on them or let the needle scratch them. I'm not allowed to touch her albums, but the 45s she lets me rifle through to my heart's content.
I've memorized the geography of every one of those records. "Johnny Angel" has a yellow label, "Twistin' the Night Away" has a tiny scratch at the beginning edge, and "Runaway," which is my current favorite, by my favorite singer, Del Shannon, has a heart drawn on the label--by me. Jo Ellen doesn't know this yet. (75-76)

 My first concrete remembrance of church is going to revival with Miss Mattie in Halleluia, Mississippi. I like revival. It's entertaining. I know almost every hymn in the Methodist hymnal by heart, every verse, and I can play most of them on the piano.
Revival lasts two weeks, so we go every night to church, and every night there is tarnation preaching and seventeen verses of "Just As I Am," until someone walks up to the altar to be saved.
Trouble is, Halleluia is a small town, and most everybody in church has already been saved. So unless somebody new shows up, or an older kid is pushed into the aisle by his mother, we just sing and sing that hymn, until my grandmother stands up and ambles in her square shoes up the aisle with a half-exasperated look on her face, and gets saved once again. Mostly she is saving all of us, and she knows we know it. (130)

"Nobody's the favorite, Franny," she says. "Of course you're important. Just because they don't broadcast it--"
"You're not around enough to notice," I interrupt, standing up straight. "You're all grown up, you're in college--you have loads of friends--you even have new friends! You can do whatever you want."
"That's certainly not true," says Jo Ellen.
I sigh. "I just want to skip all these years in between and go off to college like you, only I want to live in the dorms like Lannie does."
"This, too, shall pass. You don't know how lucky you are, Franny. You go to a good school, your dad's an officer in the military, you eat, shop, play wherever you choose, you can go to any college you want when you grow up. You've got it made. You're privileged."
I toss the tissue in the trash. "I'm invisible around here. I could disappear for days and nobody would miss me."
Now it's Jo Ellen's turn to sigh. "Franny, you're eleven. That's the problem in a nutshell." She pulls an envelope out of her purse. "Everybody feels persecuted when they're eleven. It will pass." (85)

Congrats to my Halloween comic caption winner, Megan Maynor. Megan's first picture book, ELLA AND PENGUIN STICK TOGETHER, comes out from HarperCollins in 2016. You can see Megan signing her contract in her "Wait, It Took HOW Long To Sell A Book?" post on Word Disco.

Here's Megan's winning caption:

Runners-up:

"Trick or tweet!" - Alecia Miller, on Twitter

"AND she doesn't even broompool." - Kevin Sylvester, on FB

"She spends far too much time on her newfangled iOfNewt." - Greg Pincus, on FB

"Young witches these days. Always flying and hex-ting..." - Arlene Graziano, on Twitter

"Does GPS even work up here?" - Joey Shoji, on FB

"The last witch that texted while flying, got hit by Dorothy's house." - Devin Melanson, on FB

You can see other caption entries on Twitter and on Facebook.

Megan wins my most recent #inktober doodle:

Last #inktober doodle, which is also a prize in my Halloween caption challenge (see my @inkyelbows Twitter acct).

A photo posted by Debbie Ridpath Ohi (@inkygirl) on Oct 10, 2014 at 11:32am PDT

Denver's dead trick-n-treatin'. Students dead/Mexico rising from the dead? Not-voting suicide. Latino/a Rising will live.

We're such a nation of scared sheep, I'm not surprised. For over a month the Colorado press and media, politicians, police and fear-mongers have been sensationalizing a Non-threat: "Denver Police Warn Parents About Pot-Laced Candy During Trick-or-Treat Season." Give me a break, with more than a Snickers.

When Denverites complained about the police's fear-mongering, the cops made a video posted on Facebook! They got slammed for that, too, but it was too late. At least in some Denver neighborhoods, on a Halloween night warmer than many previous, we had the lowest turnout ever. I'm guessing why. People in other areas report similar low turnouts, though not everywhere.

What will we hear next year to make us keep kids "safe" and inside and not walk the neighborhoods? ISIS terrorist sympathizers giving out hand-grenade treats! Disgruntled African immigrants giving out Ebola-licked gummy bears! Listen in to your fave shock-brained radio jock to find out. And be scared. It's as American as apple pie laced with GMOs. Oh, that's right--that's a real threat.

U.S. drug habits and drug laws, gun mania and shipments into Mexico are now responsible for the likely murders of 43 students from Ayotzinapa Normal teacher-training school, missing since Sept. 26th. Big deal. Drugs, drug lords, killings, kidnappings, decapitations, "disappearings", cartel-bribed politicians, police and soldiers are always in the news. That's the Mexico the U.S. helped create and we're not surprised to hear more. However, this time, more than mierda has hit the fan.

Mexico City rally for the 43

Many idiots, but make sure they're yours

#4 - Why you don't have to vote:  Because there's only a few hours left, and you've got too much to do.

The good news is that the Kickstarter campaign surpassed its $10,000 goal but there's still time, until midnight, for you to kick in and get some cool perks, like autographed copies, T-shirts and swag.

Some Disney employees who work in Imagineering got an early jump on Pixar's next film "Inside Out" and dressed up as the film's main characters.

Happy Halloween! 

1997

1998

1999

2003 - Heavily into Manga and still learning watercolor

2004 - Style used for my senior project in college.

And to conclude Monster Week '14, here's some preliminary art from my upcoming picture book, MARILYN'S MONSTER by the great Michelle Knudsen and published by the extraordinary Candlewick Press. Coming to a bookstore near you in MARCH 2015!

From the Will Write For Chocolate archives...