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So far in this countdown we have had a board book and several picture books, so today I have chosen to give you a chapter book.
Carol Wallace
Illustrated by Steve Bjorkman
Fiction
Ages 5 to 7
Holiday House, 2010, 978-0-8234-2219-7
Last year Aden and Leah’s family were able to host a wonderful pumpkin party for all of the children’s friends. The young guests were able to choose Halloween pumpkins from Aden and Leah’s family pumpkin patch. Leah and Aden are eager to plant pumpkins again this year so that they can have another pumpkin party in the fall.
Carefully, under the watchful eyes of Mocha and Scruffy, the family dog and cat, Aden, Leah and their parents plant their pumpkin seeds. Carefully they tend the little vines. To their great distress, the vines don’t do well at all. How can they have a Halloween pumpkin party if they don’t have any pumpkins? Why have the plants done so poorly this year when they did so well last year?
With an engaging story and amusing characters, this is an appealing chapter book for young readers. Children will enjoy the way the cat and dog in this story are the ones who save the day.
Today's Halloween book is a board book that younger readers are sure to enjoy.
Illustrated by Ben Mantle
Board Book
Ages 2 to 4
Tiger Tales, 2010, 978-1589258563
Night is falling and five little pumpkins are sitting on a gate. Tonight is not just any night, it is Halloween night, so as the moon rises strange things start to happen. Witches swoop over the pumpkins, big black spiders drop down on them, and the pumpkins “run and run” as ghosts and other spooky things fill the night air. Then the pumpkins decide to “have some fun” and the evening becomes even more interesting.
This amusing board book will perfectly suit little children who enjoy Halloween.
For today's review I have a picture book that has been out of print for twenty five years. I am delighted that it is back so that today's young readers can enjoy it.
Emily Herman
Illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray
Picture Book
Ages 5 to 7
Random House, 2010, 978-0-517-55646-7
Every year on Halloween Hubknuckles some to visit Lee and her siblings. He stays outside of course, looking in, and the children stay in and look out “enjoying the small tickles of fear” from the safety of their warm house. Then one year, Lee tells her siblings that Hubknuckles isn’t real, and there is no reason why she cannot go outside on Halloween night.
Of course, as the light fades, Lee begins to feel less confident. She has trouble eating her usual amount of dinner, and during the Halloween party, Lee is smiling on the outside, but she is nervous under her smiles.
Then the time comes, and Lee slips out of the door. She is sure that Hubknuckles is her father wearing a white sheet…but then she might be wrong.
Back in print for the first time in twenty-five years, this deliciously spooky story will leave readers wondering and guessing. Could it be that Hubknuckles is real after all, or was someone out outside playing the part? With wonderfully atmospheric pencil drawings and a beautifully paced text, this picture book is a must read for the days leading up to Halloween.
For today's Halloween title I have a picture book that leaves the reader wondering if all is what it seems! It has a fabulous ending too.
Nancy Raines Day
Illustrated by George Bates
Picture Book
For ages 4 to 7
Abrams, 2010, 978-0810939004
It is a windy Halloween night, and a little boy who is dressed up as a skeleton has a big haul of candy in his bag. Now it is time for him to go home, so he off he goes on a winding road under the light of the full moon. After a time, clouds hide the moon, and the dark woods around the little boy start to look more and more creepy. As he moves quickly through the trees, the boy hears a voice that says “Cracklety-clack, bones in a sack. They could be yours – if you look back.” The terrified boy rans on, through a field of dancing skeletons. Will this terrible ordeal ever end?
With a bone chilling text and thoroughly spooky illustrations that contain all kinds of hidden creepy images, this is the perfect book to read out loud on the days leading up to Halloween.
There are only six more days before it is Halloween, and since I have some Halloweenish books on hand that I think you will enjoy, I have decided to have a six-day count down bookish event.
I will begin with a book that is not strictly a Halloween title, but it is pertinent nevertheless. It is a book about pumpkins, and since pumpkins are often associated with Halloween, I thought it would be a great way to start my countdown.
Gail Gibbons
Nonfiction picture book
Ages 4 to 6
Holiday House, 1999, 0-8234-1636-4
For many of us pumpkins are large orange squashes that we carve into jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. They are turned into pumpkin pies, and we use them to decorate our homes during the harvest season. Most of us don’t realize that these fruit (yes they are a fruit) come in all shapes and sizes. Some varieties are huge, while others are very small indeed.
You can grow your own pumpkin by planting a pumpkin seed in a prepared patch of ground in the spring. By summer, you should have a large pumpkin vine growing in your garden, and in the fall, it will be time to harvest the pumpkins you have grown. Depending on what kind of pumpkin you have grown, you can cook them, turn them into jack-o-lanterns, or - if you grow a really big pumpkin - you can enter it into a big pumpkin contest.
This informative nonfiction picture book will be an instant hit with children who look forward to harvesting or buying pumpkins in the fall. It is not only packed with information about pumpkins, but it also gives young readers detailed instructions on how to plant a pumpkin, how to carve one, and how to dry pumpkin seeds.
I have a treat for all you writers out there today. Gail Carson Levine, who has written an excellent book about writing for children called Writing Magic
, has kindly created a little writing exercise contest for you. This is her challenge:
When I talk to children about “Little Red Riding Hood,” I suggest they picture themselves in the place of Little Red. Then I ask if they would listen to the wolf and leave the path. They all say they wouldn’t. I challenge them. “What if the wolf was as clever as the smartest person you know? Might he trick you into doing what he wants?” They start weighing the possibilities. I go on. “What if the grandmother was your real grandma? Would she let herself and you be eaten?”
This happens to be an excellent exercise in character development for writers of any age or experience, to replace fairy tale characters with real ones. The real people by their natures force old stories to change and become more complex. After all, even in a story you can’t make your brilliant best friend say something stupid or your stubborn cousin suddenly turn compliant.
The most important task in expanding fairy tales is to slow the action way down. Imagine that the heroine just flung a cloak of invisibility around her shoulders. What does the cloak feel like? What’s the fabric? Is there a label? Wait! Back up! Can she even see the label, or does the cloak vanish the moment it’s touched? What are her sensations as it envelops her? Does invisibility happen instantly or creep up? Can she continue to see herself even though others can’t? And so on.
So here’s the challenge: In “Little Red Riding Hood,” Little Red meets a talking wolf. Talking animals appear in many fairy tales, and they’re a source of wonder that you’re about
Gail Carson Levine is convinced she’s been touched by a fairy’s wand or has roamed accidentally into a fairy tale. After working as a mid-level bureaucrat in New York State government for twenty-seven years, Levine’s first children’s book, Ella Enchanted
, won a Newbery honor in 1998 and became a major motion picture in 2004.
The magic continues. Levine now has eighteen books under her belt. They’ve been published globally and translated into thirty-five languages. She’s won reader choice awards - the most gratifying for a kids’ book writer because children do the choosing - in six states. Her novels have been named annual Best Books by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and the American Library Association. Levine’s historical novel, Dave at Night, was selected by the New York Public Library as among the Best Children’s Books of the 20th Century. Her “Snow White” fairy tale,
Welcome to Day one of the Betsy Red Hoodie Blog Event. Betsy Red Hoodie is a splendid picture book that was written by Gail Carson Levine, the author who gave us Ella Enchanted and many other magical books. Here is my review of the book.
Betsy Red Hoodie
Gail Carson Levine
Picture Book
Ages 4 to 8
HarperCollins, 2010, 978-0-06-146870-4
One morning Betsy’s mother asks Betsy to take come cupcakes to Betsy’s grandmother’s house. Betsy is one of the shepherds in Bray Valley, and it is her responsibility to take care of the sheep. Not wanting to leave the sheep all alone, Betsy decides takes the sheep with her. Zimmo, the other shepherd in the valley, wants to go with Betsy. At first, Betsy is reluctant to allow it. After all, Zimmo is a wolf, and everyone knows that wolves and grandmothers do not mix. However, Betsy then decides that Zimmo can join the party because he has always been a most trustworthy wolf.
Twice along the way to Grandma’s house Betsy is warned that it is not a good idea to take Zimmo along, but Betsy doesn’t change her mind. Then Zimmo runs off and leaves Betsy with all the sheep to care for. Betsy is terrified that Zimmo might be giving in to his wolfish side at Grandmother’s house, but she cannot abandon the sheep who are in her care.
In this amusing and entertaining take on the Little Red Riding Hood story, we meet a little girl who has courage, a secretive wolf, and a herd of chatty and not terribly bright (but rather funny) sheep. Readers who think they know what is going to happen in the end are sure to be surprised when they discover that all is not what it seems.
For this book, Scott Nash’s delightful illustrations are presented in very unique way. There are full-page illustrations, divided panes, and spreads where all the characters have speech bubbles floating above their heads. You never quite know what is going to come next.
In the next four days this Blog Event will continue with an interview with Gail, a profile of Gail, and a writing contest that Gail very kindly created just for TTLG readers.
