I am a huge fan of Halloween and love decorating my porch to greet our neighborhood kids. This past year I gave away a couple dozen copies of my own picture books along with candy, which was a huge hit. I live in Baltimore with my family, including my silly, spooky kid, and love animals, especially dogs and horses. This past Halloween, my daughter wanted to dress up as a dentist, of all things, so my husband and I went along dressed up as giant teeth. She never got the irony of asking for candy while dressed as a dentist. We’ll have to wait until she is older for that.
An adorable rhyming Halloween book with educational nonfiction elements woven in, perfect for classrooms and libraries!
Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me lots of bugs to eat! Follow along as a young bat takes flight on Halloween night and eats lots of delicious bugs along the way! Includes educational back matter with lots of fun facts about bats and their favorite insects.
I love this book which teaches kids that scary things (like skeletons!) aren’t always as scary as they appear. Rebecca Evans, the author, is a friend of mine and does a lot of volunteer work to help other children’s book writers and illustrators, so I love supporting someone so involved and helpful! When I saw Rebecca read this book at an event, she had an adorable craft where kids could make skeletons out of gluing dry pasta to black paper—activity idea!
Skeletons might seem frightening, but if you look closer, there's nothing much to fear. They can't run fast, they're terrible at hide-and-seek, and they're scared of everything. When a group of trick-or-treaters runs into an actual skeleton on an enchanted Halloween night, they do whatever they can get away. But what does the skeleton really want? What if they're just looking for a friend?
This book is so darn cute! I love the fresh takes on familiar nursery rhymes. I always chuckle when I read the clever new twists (which are only a little spooky). The illustrations are a teeny bit scary, but mostly super cute. When you read this book, you can go all the way through, or just pick one nursery rhyme at a time to chant with the kids.
From "Mary, Mary, Tall and Scary" to "Wee Willie Werewolf," this collection of classic nursery rhymes turned on their heads will give readers the chills--and a serious case of belly laughs. With clever rhyme and spooky illustrations, Mother Ghost is perfect for getting in the Halloween spirit. Boo!
I am from Baltimore, where famous spooky writer Edgar Allan Poe lived and died right outside a bar I used to go to in my twenties (a few centuries before I ever went there!). Our football team is even named after his famous poem, "The Raven," and its mascots are named Edgar, Allan, and Poe. So of course I love this adorable book about a tiny raven who just won’t go to bed! Stucki’s illustrations make a kind of scary animal—a raven—very appealing to little kids. And everyone can relate to a kid not wanting to go to bed! There is a whole series of books by this duo covering different Poe stories, if you want a very literary Halloween.
Meet the plucky toddler Edgar the Raven! He's mischievous, disobedient, and contrary. Dinnertime, cleanup-time, and bedtime are all met with one word: NEVERMORE! But as the evening winds to a close, Edgar's mom knows just what to do to get her son into bed-a bedtime story.
What a cute story full of imagination and friendship! I love how the animals all band together to protect the witch from the dragon—too cute. Kids cackle (can’t help it) with glee at the adorable illustrations here. This book is perfect for any kid who wants to be a witch or warlock (or maybe even a frog) for Halloween.
How the cat purred and how the witch grinned, As they sat on their broomstick and flew through the wind.
A very funny story of quick wits and friendship, Room on the Broom is another smash hit from the unparalleled picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, creators of The Gruffalo.
The witch and her cat fly happily over forests, rivers and mountains on their broomstick until a stormy wind blows away the witch's hat, bow and wand. Luckily, they are retrieved by a dog, a bird and a frog, who are all keen for a ride on…
The simplicity of the illustrations here is so marvelous and cute! I love how this book shows that you don’t have to be just like the other pumpkins—or the other kids—to be happy and find your place in the world. This is a nice, short one (which is so needed for bedtime), and the pages where the pumpkin is getting carved are so striking and illustrated. Don’t worry, kids won’t be scared about the dear pumpkin getting carved—it’s presented as the pumpkin’s biggest dream to be a jack o’ lantern!
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What is this book about?
From the critically acclaimed author and illustrator of A Hungry Lion comes a unique Halloween story about a stemless pumpkin who dreams of becoming a jack-o-lantern.
Stumpkin is the most handsome pumpkin on the block. He’s as orange as a traffic cone! Twice as round as a basketball! He has no bad side! He’s perfect choice for a Halloween jack-o-lantern.
There’s just one problem—Stumpkin has a stump, not a stem. And no one seems to want a stemless jack-o-lantern for their window.
As Halloween night approaches, more and more of his fellow pumpkins leave, but poor Stumpkin remains. Will anyone…
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse to share. And while the animals may not have Frankie’s exalted human brain, they know things she doesn’t, like what happened before she was adopted.
To prove she’s sane, Frankie investigates her forgotten past and conducts clandestine experiments. But just when she uncovers the truth, she has to make an impossible choice: betray the animals she’s fallen in love with—or give up her last chance at success and everything she thought she knew.
Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.
But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.
While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain,…
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