Halloween Stories

I'm not big into Halloween, sorry if that offends you. I love watching my kids have so much fun dressing up. But the gross, gory side of Halloween is enough to keep it off my list of favorite holidays.

My favorite Halloween story is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. (I also love the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving story. The Charlie Brown Christmas Special is my favorite Christmas story after that one in the Book of Luke. Do you see a theme here?) I love this story so much that this happened for Halloween this year:

That's me as Linus and my 16 month old son as Charlie Brown. I love those two or three years before they choose their own costumes when you can dress them up however you want. I tried to convince my three year old to be Snoopy, but she really wanted to be a princess. Oh well.

Do you have any favorite Halloween stories, books, or movies? Any that you recommend as fun and not too scary for little kids?

Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate

I grabbed Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate off the library shelf because I had read and loved her Newbery winning book, The One and Only Ivan. I ended up loving Crenshaw just as much.

Crenshaw is young Jackson's imaginary friend who happens to be a large cat. Jackson hadn't seen Crenshaw in years, but when his family starts struggling with money again, his fears of having to live out of their van again resurface and so does Crenshaw.

My heart broke for Jackson and for his parents. Katherine Applegate is a great storyteller and this is an important story. Besides entertaining, this book would tell children who struggle with poverty that they are not alone. And it would help children who've never had to go hungry or want for anything learn empathy for others. I highly recommend it for you or for your middle grade readers.

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Crenshaw
by Katherine Applegate
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Year: 2015
Ages: Middle Grade Books
Themes: imaginary friends, poverty, homelessness
Source: our public library

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce is the book that inspired an Academy Award Winning short film that you can see on YouTube here.

It's a magical book, beautifully told and illustrated. It's a book for book lovers of all ages. The book and the short film are both wonderful, so watch the film now and find the book at a library or bookstore soon.
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The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
By William Joyce
Illustrated by William Joyce & Joe Bluhm
Publisher: Antheneum Books for Young Readers
Year: 2012
Ages: Picture Books, Young Children, Early Readers

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman originally appeared in Rag & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales. Here it gets its own book and B&W illustrations.

From the title you can probably tell it is the story of Sleeping Beauty. But the sleeping sickness that takes over the castle begins to spread like a plague through the whole kingdom and even into neighboring towns. It is about to threaten the kingdom over the mountains, and so its queen goes on a journey to break the spell and cure the sleeping plague. She can make it through the land without falling asleep because she happens to be Snow White who survived a year of magical sleep herself. There are lots of fairy tale retellings, but this one is truly reimagined.

I loved this book. But it is not for everyone. Neil Gaiman's work is always interesting and beautiful, but also dark and haunting. If dark is not your thing (or your teen's thing), try a Shannon Hale fairy tale instead. But if you like things a little bit haunting, a little bit scary, and a little bit different, this may just be the perfect fairy tale book for you.
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The Sleeper and the Spindle
By Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Chris Riddell
Publisher: Harper
Year: 2013
Info: B&W Illustrations
Ages: Young Adult
Themes: fairy tales
Source: our public library

Book Character Halloween Costumes

At my daughter's elementary school they don't celebrate Halloween. But the Kindergarteners and First Graders have a Book Character Parade around Halloween time. I saw a lot of parents kind of fudge it and say since they published Frozen books after the movie came out, their kid came as Elsa. I don't think there's anything wrong with coming as a fairytale princess, but maybe not the Disneyfied version.

Here are some ideas of book character Halloween costumes that I found after looking at our bookshelf for five minutes.

Max from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I really want to dress my son up as Max one year. But it would make kind of a warm costume and we're still well into the 80s here in Florida just a couple weeks away from Halloween.

Stephanie from Stephanie's Ponytail by Robert Munsch

This one would be extremely easy, but not easily recognized. Stephanie's schoolmates keep copying her hairstyles, so she goes to school with increasingly crazy ponytail creations in order to be original. The ponytail is all you'd need for this costume.

Olivia from the Olivia books by Ian Falconer

Olivia loves wearing read, so red from head-to-toe (especially red with white stripes) would make this costume. A headband with pig ears would add another element to the costume.

The Princess from The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

The Paper Bag Princess is left with nothing but a paper bag to wear after a dragon destroys her kingdom. All you'd need to do is cut head and arm holes in a paper bag. This one would be extra easy because you wouldn't need to give your kid a bath or comb her hair that day.

Sherlock Holmes

Okay, so this one would require some actual costume props. But it would make a really awesome costume for anyone if you had a deerstalker cap, a wool coat, and pipe.

Pete the Cat by James Dean and Eric Litwin
In his original book, Pete the Cat loves his shoes no matter if they're white, red, blue, or brown. If your kid has two of those colors of shoes, they could wear one of each. The book below is about Pete and his buttons. If you had a yellow shirt or coat they could wear that with four large buttons attached to it.

Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann
And last but not least, this is the book character my daughter chose last year and for this year again. It's pretty easy costume for most girls. Wear all pink! A crown would be nice, but not necessary. We also covered her face in pink blush and got pink hair chalk that showed up in person but not very well for pictures.

Have you ever dressed your kids up as a book character for Halloween?

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” – Madeleine L’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books ever. I've put it on every list of books I think everyone should read and I've read it at least once a year since I was about ten years old. I miss it if I don't read it. Thought it is geared toward younger readers, I think every adult should read it too.

I've had a hard time explaining why I love this book so much. It undeniably has some strange elements to it. It's written in very simple language. It begins with a cliche--"It was a dark and stormy night." But I could relate to Meg--awkward, emotional, unpopular, feeling unloved. I think most young girls feel that way. (I'm not sure about the popular pretty girls, because none of them ever talked to me.) Yet in the end, Meg is the hero. She saves her family.

This book is simple enough for children, but has themes complex enough for me to choose it for my adult book club read. If you haven't read it, you should. It needs to be sitting on your bookshelf for your kids to discover and love someday.

What's your favorite book from  your childhood? Do you have a book that you read over and over again?

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A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Year: 1962

Info: Newbery Award Winner

Ages: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Themes: science fiction, good vs. evil, conformity, family, love

Source: my bookshelf

A Perfectly Messed-Up Story by Patrick McDonnell

Louie is happy as can be to be telling his story, until the reader messes up his book with jelly stains, fingerprints, and scribbles!

This was a fun, interactive book that proves that books are meant to be read and loved. The combination of illustrations and realistic looking photographs is fun too. My kids were touching the jelly stains to see if it was really there.

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A Perfectly Messed-Up Story
By Patrick McDonnell
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Year: 2014
Info: full color illustration
Ages: picture books, young children
Themes: books, reading, stories
Source: our public library

Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley

This book was one of our random library picks and we ended up enjoying it. On the surface it's a story of a boy (who happens to be a beaver) who builds boats, goes to the beach with his mother, and then sends the boats out into the ocean with a note for his papa. But, spoiler alert, the boats never make it to Papa. And it's really his mama who has been retrieving the boats each night and treasuring them.

This book subtly handles the issues of death and grief. I was impressed that both of my girls picked up on what was really going on in the story and they talked with me about the fact that some people die. Though the Papa in this book is a reference to a father, my own father was known as Papa by his grandchildren. He died when my oldest was only one year old. So we talked about their Papa after reading this book.

If you need to talk about grief and death with your children, this book is a good way to start a difficult conversation. Buckley the beaver is sad that Papa is gone, but he has his mama and is filled with love and appreciation for her. There is sadness, but there is also love in this book.

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Boats for Papa
By Jessixa Bagley
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Year: 2015
Info: full color illustrations
Ages: picture books, young children
Themes: grief, mother and child, single parents, beach, boats
Source: our public library

The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Princesses don't run. Princesses don't wear black. Princesses definitely don't fight monsters. Or do they? As the mother of girls who love princesses and superheroes, I loved reading this book with my girls. There has been a little bit of effort in recent years to include female superheroes (though they're still by far the minority), but I appreciated that in this book, you don't have to choose. You can be a princess and a superhero.

This book was written by wife/husband team Shannon Hale and Dean Hale. Shannon Hale is one of my favorite YA authors. And it's illustrated by LeUyen Pham. I rarely recognize an illustrator's work, but I'm beginning to recognize her and have another favorite picture book that she illustrated that I'll highlight soon.

This book is told in short chapters with large type so it would make a good first chapter book. With my early reader, I read some pages and she read some pages. She's reading pretty good, but she gets overwhelmed quickly, so I take the pages with lots of type and give her the ones with more pictures and fewer words. It's a fun, quick read. Give it a try with your girls. Or with your boys--there may be a goat boy who takes inspiration from the Princess in Black that they can cheer for if they shy away from princess stuff.

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The Princess in Black
By Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
Illustrated by LeUyen Pham
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Year: 2014
Info: color illustrations
Ages: Picture Books, Early Readers, First Chapter Books
Themes: princesses, superheroes, monsters
Source: our public library

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (Newbery Winner)

Once upon a time I made a goal to read all the Newbery Medal books. It's a goal that once met, was easy to maintain as it requires I read one new book each year. There are some weird stories that won back in the early days, but there are some beautiful books sprinkled throughout, especially in the last thirty or so years.

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse stands out to me as a great book among other great books. The novel is told in verse form by young Billie Jo as she and her family live through the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and as she goes through unimaginably hard challenges. Since it's told in verse, the writing is especially sparse and beautiful--every word has a reason for being there. And the story is engaging, at times heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring.

This book is great for middle grade and young adult readers alike. It's a good introduction to verse, or poetry, because it tells a story. The story is interesting enough to keep their attention, and it teaches about a part of American History. Many adults will enjoy this book too--it was well received when the women in my book club all read it.

(I will warn that there is death in the book. Not that children and young adults shouldn't read about death. But I've learned to be aware of recommending books with death and loss in them to children who have experienced a recent death in the family. Wait till emotions are less raw.)
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Out of the Dust: A Novel
By Karen Hesse
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 1997
Info: won Newbery Medal, told in verse
Ages: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Themes: family, Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, historical fiction, loss, coming of age
Source: my bookshelf

Banned Books Week and a Note on Censorship

This week is Banned Books Week. Some of my all-time favorites books have been challenged including Where the Wild Things Are and To Kill a Mockingbird. I am opposed to censorship. However, as a lover of children's and young adult literature, and as a mother, that doesn't mean I want my kids reading anything and everything.

One of the problems with censorship is that it gives the books being challenged a lot more media attention. And everyone knows that it's human nature to seek out what we're told we can't have. Mark Twain's books were often censored and he wrote a letter to his editor about one such censorship saying that more books would sell now that it wasn't available on library shelves.

Another problem with it is that I don't want anyone telling me what I can and cannot write or read, so I have no right to do the same to others. 

But that doesn't mean I want my kids (or even myself) to read books regardless of content. I often like young adult literature more than adult literature partially because of the writing and partially because, at least once upon a time, there was less content that made me uncomfortable. Sadly, I've encountered more and more young adult literature with content that I don't want to read. (One book had a college freshman with a very casual approach to underage drinking. Another was a fairy tale that had explicit sexual content for no apparent reason.) Which is why I think it's important to know what your children are reading.

To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have both been frequently challenged because of racial content. I would argue that they do not promote racism and it's an important topic to learn about and discuss with our children as they get older. There are many excellent books on the Holocaust. I don't want my six-year-old reading them, but a sixteen-year-old needs to learn about that dark part of our world's history--and learn from it. Books that contain themes of racism, war, abuse, violence, rape, drugs, crime, and even sex have an important place if they open up frank discussions on the topic for young adults who are emotionally mature enough. Those things are out there, and I'd rather my children learn about them from me and from good literature that warns us against them (not advocating them) than have them learn about it from peers and social media.

There is more and more explicit content in young adult books these days. And I put those ones down without finishing them and would never recommend them here. But there are some books that I will cover with content or themes to be aware of so that parents can make a choice about when they want to talk about those things with their children. I will always state if there are themes in the book that not all children are ready for emotionally, and then you can decide for your child if they are ready for that.

So to celebrate Banned Books Week, I'm not going to pick up or advocate books that promote things I disagree with. But I'm going to read Where the Wild Things Are to my children today without once worrying that it's too dark and disturbing for them.