Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! When the weather gets just a bit crisp and the leaves start to fall, it’s time to get spooky. Luckily, Halloween books start hitting stores now, giving me a little taste to get through the last weeks of Summer. Here are a couple of new books to consider adding to your shelves for your little goblins and ghouls.
A Costume for Charly, by C.K. Malone/Illustrated by Alejandra Barajas, (Sept. 2022, Beaming Books), $18.99, ISBN: 9781506484051
Ages 4-10
Halloween is coming, and bigender Charly wants to find a costume that “showed they were both a boy and a girl”. After trying on multiple outfits that either hid them or swallowed their masculine or feminine identity, Charly gets to work and makes their own costume that makes them feel as fabulous, frightening, and fantastic! Cartoon art meshes with realistic artwork to give readers a brown-skinned bigender child aware of themselves and unwilling to settle for anything less than perfect. Charly’s confidence and creativity are uplifting; their friends’ supportive reactions are important for readers to see. Details throughout Charly’s room encourage both halves of their identity. A note on nonbinary and bigender identities and resources for further reading make up the back matter. A good first purchase for collections.
Visit CK Malone’s author webpage for more resources.
Construction Site Gets a Fright!, by Sherri Duskey Rinker/Illustrated by AG Ford, (Aug. 2022, Chronicle Books), $12.99, ISBN: 9781797204321
Ages 1-4
I love the Construction Site books by Sherri Duskey Rinker and AG Ford, and my library kids do, too! The adorable trucks and the soothing rhyme make for such good readalouds and bedtime stories. In the latest board book, Construction Site Gets a Fright!, the trucks are all dressed for Halloween, but when it’s time to power down for the evening, we see that even big trucks can be afraid sometimes. Each of the trucks thinks they see something spooky, but on closer examination – and a quick lift of a sturdy flap on the reader’s part – we discover that there’s nothing to be afraid of after all, and that sharing laughs with friends is the best way to chase the “boos” away. AG Ford’s artwork is instantly recognizable; little readers will delight in seeing familiar friends, like Crane Truck and Bulldozer. The artwork has purple and green tones to add to the ghostly atmosphere, with bold blacks popping off the background. Verse is playful, making for a fun Halloween read. An instant purchase for your board books collections.
Mom Read It 
Thank you so much for spotlighting CHARLY!! Your spotlight is an honor. You are amazing.
Thank you so much! You are the amazing one; your story is just delightful and will literally save lives. Thanks for taking the time to say hello.