Dr. Frankenstein wasn't much of a sharer.
Whenever anyone asked how he pieced together his monster, he'd clam up so no one would repeat his hideous mistake.
But thanks to those crazy, devil-may-care editors at Klutz, your kids can now make their own gruesome blunders with Dr. Frankensketch's monster machine.
Within the pages of this clever art book, young dabblers get to assemble and trace a closet full of yellow-eyed, tummy-bulging ghouls.
But beware, the editors warn, as you open the storage locker for the monsters, "Contents may be rabid and angry."
Not to mention brutishly cute.
Inside the book are 20 ready-made ruffians that can be torn along serrated lines into three parts, a head, torso and lower portion with legs, then mixed to create other ghouls that are terribly, adorably wrong.
By themselves, these fellows are already pretty hideous.
There's a pointy-toothed ogre with zebra-striped horns and a clown-size nose and even a four-eyed blue blob that drips goo and has dog bone hands.
For traditionalists, there's also Frankenstein's monster with flat, green head, bolts in his neck and a scowling mouth and a Dracula with menacing brow, beady eyes and bloody lips.
But you haven't seen nothing yet.
Using a graphite pencil found in a little box on the cover of the book, they trace their ghoul onto the paper. Once done, they remove it and use three pencils w
Written and illustrated by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley
$16.99
If you want to see your children go zombie over a book, hold this one in front of them.
Then stand back and watch their eyes bulge out and their arms spring forward to get it out of your hands.
The Emberleys latest gem is an eye-popping delight. Bold, crisp cut-outs of rainbow colored monsters growl and jiggle to a raucous rendition of the popular repetitive song, "If You're Happy and You Know It."
As monsters jump out from all angles of the page with huge, hypnotic eyes, readers are coaxed to join in with the song and show they're monsters too by acting out various prompts.
First the monsters snort and growl, then they smack their claws, stomp their paws and twitch their tails. Next comes the silliest yet, wiggle your warts, as monsters shake their spotted bodies and flip around.
Then it's time for readers to show their stuff with a roar. As your child turns the page, a jagged mouthed monster opens his jaws wide over a two-page spread, suggesting just how loud they should cry out.
But wait, isn't it time for the tail of the song?
Clear out some furniture, Mom and Dad, it's time to do all six prompts at once!
If your children are silly and you know it, you won't want to miss this frenetic, fun book. The question is: who will be more wound up at the end? Your readers or the monsters?
Just be sure to have pile of multi-colored construction paper on hand when they tucker out. Nothing will delight them like snipping out monsters of their own.
To download the song, click
here.
If You're a Monster and You Know It is sung by Adrian Emberley, Rebecca's daughter and Ed's granddaughter.
Ed Emberley is beloved for his drawings books as well as many popular picture books, including the 1972 Caldecott Medal winning Drummer Hoff, written by wife Barbara Emberley.
The True History of the Fallen Ones
By Archibald Brooks
Edited by Nick Holt
$19.99, ages 9-12, 30 pages.
Vampires are lurking everywhere and unless you take heed, you may be cursed with bloodthirst for all eternity, the late Archibald Brooks warns in this entrancing visual guide to dealing with the undead.
As you flip through the pages of the album-size scrapbook, scholar Brooks provides everything you need to evade the curse of the Fallen Ones, including tips to detect vampires and protect yourself from their deadly charms.
Above all else, Brooks writes, don't be fooled into believing the romantic stories you've read from Bram Stoker and his ilk about vampires, for these fanged creatures are more than a glamorous fiction.
They have insinuated themselves in every corner of society and, if they want to, they can wipe out humankind forever. For now, they've refrained from doing so, but only because they need our positive energy as much as our blood.
"�the more they can corrupt human energy into something wicked, the more powerful they become, for it is from destruction of our essential humanity that they derive strength," Brooks explains. "�we are their playthings as much as their food."
Sadly, our Brooks was murdered at the British Museum on May 12, 1920, two decades after writing the book. We can all be grateful that he had the foresight to hide it in a museum cupboard, and leave instructions with his trusted friend, detective Joshua Kraik, to guard his research and take up the call of "Protector."
A Protector is a person of courage and intellect who takes on the fight to defeat the Fallen Ones. If the Protector's life is threatened, he chooses another human to take up the mantel, and as the books opens, we read the last letters Brooks would ever write, in which he beseeches Kraik to be the next vampire slayer.
Filled with scintillating details, Brooks's make-believe book is both a guide to survival and a call to readers everywhere to take up the call of vampire slayer. "Be certain," he warns, "this is not a child's game. It is a war, and we face the enemy's heavy assault dressed in our human weakness."
By:
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on 4/20/2010
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*Picture book, contemporary fantasy for first through fifth graders
*Young boy as main character
*Rating: Wake the Dead by Monica A. Harris is definitely a witty and entertaining picture book–but for a little older audience than most picture books.
Short, short summary:
Henry is VERY loud; and his entire family is telling him if he’s not careful, he’ll wake the dead. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what happens. Some rather cute skeletons come out of their graves and try to find the source of the noise that woke them out of their sleep. Along the way, a beautician tells one skeleton, “Oh, honey, you look like death warmed over.” At the library, the librarian tells another corpse, “I expect dead silence in here.” When they finally find Henry, he “could guess by their deadpan expressions that they had a bone to pick with him.” He does his best to try and convince this crew to go back to their graves, but they are now wide-awake! So with some witty puns and funny illustrations, Monica A. Harris and Susan Estelle Kwas help Henry solve his problem and get the dead where they need to be! (I realize this is the middle of April, but you should bookmark this book for October!!!)
So, what do I do with this book?
1. The reason why Wake the Dead is so perfect for older students is because they’ve probably heard many of these puns and expressions before in their lives. And so, they can take one of the puns from the book, create their own sentence with it, and then draw an illustration to go with it. Younger students might have a harder time with this book and/or activity. Although, they will still enjoy the cute illustrations. You could have them draw a picture of their favorite part of the book and write sentences explaining why they like that part.
2. A writing journal prompt to go with Wake the Dead: In the book, Henry throws a sleep over for the dead folks. He plans many fun activities. If you could plan this sleep over with Henry, what would you do? What are some of your favorite activities to do at sleep overs?
3. A fun October activity would be to show students the two-page spread of the skeletons dressed up in their Halloween costumes and let them choose the winner of the costume contest. Henry chooses George Washington because the winner was a “dead-ringer” for him. Which one would your students choose and why? You could display your results on a bar graph to find the winner.
photo by Terren in Virginia www.flickr.com
I heard the coolest idea on the news this morning. There’s this dentist in East Central Illinois (where I live) who is offering kids $1.00 for every pound of Halloween candy they bring in to him for a two-hour time span a couple days this week. I think this is such a great idea for health reasons: for the kids’ bodies, their teeth, and their stomachs; but especially to help Mom and Dad from eating all the candy the kids don’t like, right?
But this dentist doesn’t stop there–he is also giving $1.00 to the Crisis Nursery in Urbana, IL for every pound of candy the kids bring in. Oh, and all that candy doesn’t go to waste. This is even a better idea yet–he sends it to the U.S. soldiers in Iraq! 
photo by BL1961 www.flickr.com
So, what does this have to do with you if you are a parent, teacher, or librarian living nowhere near East Central IL? Well, on this Maniac Monday, my brain started spinning, and I just thought this would be a cool idea to pass on. You could make this work in your classroom, school, or home so easily. Here are a few ideas:
1. Box up your candy and send it to a U.S. soldier. Operation Gratitude has information on how to send care packages. (This is a great idea for any children who have allergies but go trick-or-treating anyway just for fun. They can send their candy overseas and save parents from gaining extra pounds. 
2. Ask students to bring in their candy they have left and weigh it. (Math lesson, anyone?) Ask students to bring in a non-perishable food item for every pound of candy they have. Donate the food to a local food pantry.
3. If you have money to spend, then you can do an idea like the dentist above. If you need some charities to send money to, you can find plenty on this page on this blog: Helping Children and Teens Around the World.
Here’s a book, Harriet’s Halloween Candy, about Halloween candy. This book can give you a chance to open up a discussion, without preaching, with your child or your class about sharing Halloween candy and eating too much of it! When I taught full time, I remember one third grader, who enjoyed too much candy the night of Halloween. She threw up all over the computer keyboard in the back of my room on November 1. Oh the joys of teaching the day after Halloween!
Does this dentist’s idea give anyone else any ideas? What have you done with your leftover candy in the past? Let us know! Save us all from the beginning of the holiday-eating season and help some children in return.
This is the fourth book in the popular You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series. Hoberman describes this as a “read together/read-aloud book.” The “very short scary tales” in this book, written in rhythmic, rhyming verse, would be perfect for a choral reading activity in an elementary classroom. They’d also be wonderful stories for a parent and child to read together—especially at this time of year. Children are sure to delight in reading the book’s thirteen tales about zombies, a ghoul, a witch and her broomstick, trick or treating, a ghost and a mouse, and goblins, gremlins, demons, and devils.
Here’s an excerpt from
Goblins, Gremlins, Demons, and Devils
There are goblins in the garden.
There are gremlins in the glen.
There are demons in the cellar.
There are devils in the den.
They are crawling in the windows.
They are creeping in the doors.
They are sliding down the chimney.
They are slipping through the floors.
Oh, we wish we knew some magic
That would get us out of here,
Or a secret spell to corner them
And make them disappear!
All of the scary stories for two voices close in the same fashion—with the characters reading to each other.
The ending from
The Ogre and the Giant
Since the day is
Warm and breezy,
Why don’t we just
Take it easy?Stretch out on
The sandy beach.
Take a sunbath.
Eat a peach.
Find a storybook
Or two.
You read to me.
I’ll read to you.
The poems for reading together aren’t really terribly scary tales—but they would be lots of fun to read aloud with someone…at any time of the year. Michael Emberley adds just the right touches of ghoulish humor with his mixed-media illustrations.
Halloween Hoots and Howls
Written by Joan Horton
Illustrated by Joann Adinolfi
Henry Holt, 1999
The rhyming verses and illustrations included in this poetry collection are more silly and light-hearted in nature than they are dark and scary. The poems’ topics include a child talking about the costume he’ll wear when he goes trick-or-treating; a ghost and goblin ball; a dancing ghost; a Halloween quiz; a recipe for goblin punch; the rather gross dishes on a witch’s dinner menu; a mummy who drives a school bus; and Doctor Frankenstein going food shopping at the market.
Halloween Hoots and Howls would be a fun collection to share with young children in the classroom—or at home.
Here’s one of my favorite poems from the book:
Witch Hazel’s Dinner Menu
Electric eels,
thinly sliced.
Baby bat wings,
hotly spiced.
Worms in brine
(cup or bowl)
Dragon entrails casserole
Sumac salad, green and chivey,
tossed with lots of poison ivy
Spider bundt cake
Witches’ brew
(regular and decaf, too)
Los Gatos Black on Halloween
Written by Marisa Montes
Illustrated by Yuyi Morales
Henry Holt, 2006
Los Gatos Black on Halloween is one of those picture poetry books in which the art provides a perfect backdrop for the verses. The textured paintings with soft blurry edges and mostly muted colors contain plenty of macabre images of skeletons (los esqueletos), witches (las brujas), phantoms (los fantasmas), the dead (los muertos) and monsters (los monstruos) to set kids shivering with delight.
Los Gatos Black on Halloween is a book-length poem written in English and Spanish about black cats and ghosts and skeletons and other spooky beings making their way to a haunted casa on the last night of October. There they all crowd into the Haunted Hall where they play music and dance and have a grand time…until they hear loud RAPS on the door. Then…
La puerta creaks…it opens wide.
The things are coming. Run and hide!
They hold up bags, yell “TRICK OR TREAT!”
Los monstruos beat a quick retreat.
The thing that monsters most abhor
Are human ninos at the door!
Of all the horrors they have seen,
The WORST are kids on Halloween!
This is an excellent story in verse that would be a wonderful book to read aloud. Montes proves herself to be adept at writing rhythmic verse. Her lines scan well. She uses a rich vocabulary of English words—and includes some interesting rhyming pairs: gleam/scream, stalks/mocks, parade/invade, waltz/somersaults, gasps/unclasps, abhor/door.
The book could serve as an excellent introduction to the Spanish language for young children. Even kids who don’t know any Spanish will be able to easily figure out the non-English words interwoven in the text because of the context clues and illustrations.
Los Gatos Black on Halloween was the Pura Belpre Award Winner for Illustration and an Honor Book for Narrative in 2008. The book includes a glossary with a pronunciation key.
********************
At Blue Rose Girls, I have Shakespeare’s Song of the Witches.
My poetry post this week at Political Verses is a Paean to a Bovine Beauty.
Jennie has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Biblio File.
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as of 1/1/1900
A great collection of Halloween books for me to pass along to the children's librarian! Many thanks.
How did I miss that one by Calef Brown?!? Must have!
I'd add another oldie but goodie to your list -- Eve Merriam's HALLOWEEN ABC (illus Lane Smith).
very nice1