Halloween – Page 3 – Mom Read It

Bone Soup puts a Halloween spin on a classic!

Posted on October 24, 2018October 24, 2018 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Bone Soup: A Spooky Tasty Tale, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli/Illustrated by Tom Knight, (July 2018, Simon & Schuster), $17.99, ISBN: 9781481486088

Ages 4-8

Naggy, Craggy, and Scraggy are three hungry witches. Alas, their cupboards are bare, but for a single bone. A single bone, you say? Piff-Poof! Naggy Witch has a plan: Bone Soup, the perfect Halloween treat! The witches travel throughout the town, gathering delights from the local monsters: a bit of water here, an eye of a giant there, some old toenails and some slimy sludge, until the entire town has contributed to a bone-chillingly delicious meal for all! Based on the classic tale, Stone Soup, Alyssa Satin Capucilli puts a wonderfully fun spin on this perfect read for preschoolers and, Kindergartners (and more!).

There’s repetition here that invites readers to join in: “Piff-Poof!” Naggy Witches cries as each ingredient goes into the cauldron, and the witches chant, with each stop, “Trick-or-treat! Trick-or-treat! We’ve something unusually good to eat. It’s bone soup, soup from a bone. A savory morsel is all it needs!” Get the kids chanting, let them be little monsters or witches, and pull out a cauldron (it’s Halloween season, you can find a $1.99 trick or treat cauldron anywhere) to let them throw goodies in.The charcoal and pencil art is adorable, with green, crazy-haired witches, giant blue monsters, and googly-eyed mummies and skeletons. The fonts are big and readable, changing size and color for emphasis. There’s a recipe for Naggy Witch’s Bone Soup at the end of the book, with thoughtful substitution suggestions for those of us who may balk at juice of a toad or colored flies. Author Alyssa Satin Capucilli has a great storytime activity kit for free download on her site, complete with word games for older readers, and a printable recipe to hand out to parents. My kids and my library kids know and love Ms. Capucilli’s Biscuit books, so that could be a good intro when telling parents about the author.

This would be a great feltboard storytime activity, or you can get creative and make your own eyeballs (ping pong balls are good), toenails (cut up some index cards into slivers), and a bone or two (it’s Halloween, there are plush or plastic bones to be found everywhere). I love this story, and can’t wait to get it in front of a group of Kindergartners next week for a Halloween storytime!

programs

Halloween Slime Time!

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

I’ve been settling in here at my new library digs, and finally felt comfortable enough with the kids to try something I’ve previously dodged in the past: slime. I feel like I’ve gotten to know my QH Kids and their parents well enough to attempt a mess on this level, especially after the Quirk Party bubble lab and Annabelle Fisher author visit went so well. I found this great edible candy corn slime (more like Play-Doh in consistency) recipe from Teach Beside Me – incidentally, I love this site; you should add her to your list of program resources if you don’t have the site bookmarked already – and went for it.

I’m pretty sure the kids were happy. (And I love Facebook’s “Add Stickers” function so very much.)

The program was packed – 20 kids and 4 parents! – so I recruited one of my tweens to handle melting duties with me, and we let all the little ones get a turn mixing the candy corn and coconut oil together. The kids had a blast, but word to the wise, this stuff gets as hard as a rock pretty darn quickly. I had a great time, we were all covered in powdered sugar and laughing, and they’re excited about the next slime lab, which will be something more pliable, and in greater volume: Definitely need to double the materials list to accommodate the kids.

Tomorrow, it’s walking s’mores (Golden Grahams, mini marshmallows, mini chocolate chips, put ’em in a cup), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and a costume party with a tube of zombie army men as the grand prize. Stay tuned!

Animal Fiction, Preschool Reads, Toddler Reads

Pug and Pig love Halloween!!

Posted on October 26, 2017October 26, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Pug & Pig: Trick or Treat, by Sue Lowell Gallion/Illustrated by Joyce Wang, (July 2017, Simon & Schuster), $17.99, ISBN: 9781481449779

Blog Tour: How to Catch a Monster!

Posted on October 20, 2017October 14, 2017 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Ready to Catch a Monster? Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton sure are – this is the newest in their “How to Catch…” series!

How to Catch a Monster by Adam Wallace & Andy Elkerton
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Publication Date: September 5, 2017

A USA Today Bestseller! From the creators of the New York Times bestselling How to Catch a Leprechaun and How to Catch an Elf!

Get ready to laugh as a young ninja heads into the closet to meet the monster that’s been so scary night after night! But what if things aren’t what they seem and our monster isn’t scary at all? What if our ninja hero is about to make a friend of strangest sort?

There’s a great storytime activity kit you can download for FREE. There are plenty of activities for your next Halloween read-aloud: discussion questions, coloring sheets, a maze, even a word search.

Adam Wallace is a children’s writer and cartoonist living in Australia. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Catch series and Only You Can Save Christmas.

Andy Elkerton is a children’s book illustrator based in the United Kingdom.

Buy Links

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wVzyMw

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/2xJziV5

Book Depository: http://bit.ly/2xw4rv8

Indiebound: http://bit.ly/2hwpQ14

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Don’t miss out on your chance to win a copy of How to Catch a Monster! Enter this Rafflecopter giveaway today!

Early Reader, Fiction, Preschool Reads

Spotlight On: A Halloween Scare at My House!

Posted on October 29, 2015October 11, 2015 by Rosemary Kiladitis

From the opening invitation to a Halloween Scare t0 the Halloween-motif endpapers, A Halloween Scare at My House is a perfect read-aloud for toddlers to Kindergarteners! Check out the Sourcebooks Spotlight below, with the chance to win your own copy of the book!

A Halloween Scare at My House Series, by Eric James/Illustrated by Marina Le Ray

Series Info:
Title: A Halloween Scare at My House
Author: Eric James
Illustrator: Marina Le Ray
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Description:
The perfect gift for every child or kid-at-heart who also loves celebrating the most eerie and thrilling night of the year, the Halloween Scare regional series offers a jaunty tale with a humorous bent—sure to ward off any creature who goes bump in the night in cities and states across the country!

Now with 78 titles highlighting different cities, states, and regions in the U.S. and Canada, each book in the Halloween Scare series features art and text created especially for a specific state or city. Fun Halloween creatures and critters haunt your favorite landmarks, including famous sites like the Statue of Liberty in New York, California’s Hollywood sign, the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, Churchill Downs in Kentucky, the San Jacinto Monument in Texas and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina.

With its bouncing rhyme, colorful illustrations, and funny story, the Halloween Scare series is a delightful Halloween adventure for everyone who loves a silly, spooky tale. It’s perfect for younger readers who can explore their state or city and little learn more about the places and landmarks that make their homes unique.

Prepare, if you dare, for a Halloween scare,
A night of pure terror to whiten your hair.
A tale full of sights that are best left unseen. You ready? You sure?
This was my Halloween.

About the Author and Illustrator:

Eric James is a children’s book author, word tickler, and champion asparagus thrower. You can find him online at http://www.ericjames.co.uk. He lives in Bath, England, with his family.

Marina Le Ray has had success both as a children’s book illustrator as well as a greeting card designer. She lives and works in Nantes, France.

My two cents: This is an adorable book. The fact that it’s customized for different regions of the states makes it a great choice for read-alouds and for classrooms that want to incorporate some fun into their Social Studies curriculum. Leave time in a lesson to talk about Halloween in your cities, versus traditions from other cities. The rhyming text and story about a little boy who overcame his fear of Halloween and monsters will draw kids in, so don’t be afraid to read with different voices, make spooky sounds, and invite the kids to shriek and moan along with you. Halloween storytimes are the best storytimes ever!

Buy Links:
Available at all major booksellers

Don’t forget, enter this Rafflecopter giveaway for a chance to win your own copy!
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Preschool Reads

Book Review: The Spooky Hour, by Tony Mitton/illus. by Guy Parker-Rees (Orchard Books, 2004)

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Recommended for ages 3-7

Spooky Hour is a counting story – counting down, rather than a counting up – about a dog and a cat who witness spooky creatures on their way to a party at the strike of twelve. The dog and cat follow the creatures: eleven witches, ten ghosts, nine skeletons, and more, all the way to the spooky castle doors, where Mitch and Titch, the witchy twins, are waiting to welcome them to the big, spooky party, where they feast on one gigantic pumpkin pie. The cartoon illustrations are fun, even silly, but never scary, and younger audiences will enjoy the anticipation of counting down to the party. The full-bleed images have a great deal of action going on in the frames: flying ghosts, a line of skeletons dancing into a forest, observed by owls, trolls tromping through a forest as the cat and dog hide behind a log. The font is black or yellow – whatever needs to pop on the page’s background – and looks similar to a typewriter font.

The book has interactive elements that make it a good candidate for a Halloween read-aloud. The story itself is written in rhyme, and each creature has a sound attached to its action that audiences can mimic and act out: the witches shriek, the ghosts swirl,whirl, and say, “whoooo”, the skeletons dance and go clickety-clack. Attendees can come in costume and receive a trick or treat bag with some candy and a small toy, and there can be a jack-o-lantern craft for children to color. Time permitting, they can cut out shapes for jack-o-lantern faces and glue them on. Perpetual Preschool has Halloween songs that the children can sing after the story, and there are CDs with Halloween music, like Kids Bop Halloween, which can play during the craft time, and children can receive a Halloween hand stamp before they go home.

Preschool Reads, Toddler Reads

Book Review: If You’re a Monster and You Know It, by Rebecca & Ed Emberley (Orchard Books, 2010)

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Rosemary Kiladitis

Recommended for ages 2-5

The classic song “If You’re Happy and You Know It” gets a monster makeover from Rebecca Emberley and her father, Caldecott Award winner Ed Emberley.

Caregivers have taught toddlers and preschoolers that song, “If You’re Happy and You Know It”, for years. Rebecca and Ed Emberley put a fun, new spin on a familiar song by incorporating monsters, with all of the snorts, growls, wiggles and roars that go with them. Most children will be familiar with the tune, so slotting in new, fun, silly words and actions will be easy and exciting. The neon-bright, digitally created monsters pop off the black page backgrounds, appearing to almost pop off the page. The story font is a bright green for easy reading, but small and almost comic-like in appearance. The action words – stomp, snort, growl, wiggle, roar – are large, brightly colored, and appear to be digitally rendered along with the rest of the artwork, providing an easy prompt for children to take action.

This would be a great interactive read-aloud for toddlers and preschoolers alike, especially for a fun Halloween storytime. There could be a mask-making workshop before the storytime, where participants can color in blank printouts and create their own monsters that will stomp and roar and twitch their tails during the reading. Ed Emberley’s website offers printable mask activities and other October activities that would work with a Halloween read-aloud. There are many fingerplays and songs to be sung during a Halloween storytime; plus, the book comes with a link to a free, downloadable version of the song from the Scholastic website that can be played for a full-on monster dance party.

The authors have further resources on their websites (http://www.rebeccaemberley.com/, http://www.edemberley.com/pages/main.aspx) for more printable, downloadable activities.

The book has received several accolades, including nomination for the Grand Canyon Reader Award and the Building Block Picture Book Award, and designation as an IRA Children’s Choice.