Halloween Spooktacular Party

This year Halloween fell on a Monday, which meant we hosted a storytime AND party. I had over 20 children, all in costume, arrive up to a half hour early for the event. I had a build-a-monster puppet with me, and so I used "Hal" to entertain the early birds. He was a big hit. After the stories, songs, etc we paraded through the library building complex and all the office staff handed out candy - and had almost as much fun as the kids! We then came back to the children's room and made ghost windsocks and ate brownies. It was exhausting but wildly successful. Here are the books we read:

Clifford's First Halloween by Norman Bridwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Halloween, a cute blond girl, and a giant red dog - what more is there to say? I have a Clifford finger puppet and so, I had an assistant hold the book while I read the story and puppet Clifford added his personal comments. The kids loved it. When Emily Elizabeth settles on a ghost costume for Puppy Clifford, I pulled out one for the finger puppet that matched. I like Clifford books because of their simplicity and their great kids appeal.


When the Goblins Came Knocking by Anna Grossnickle Hines
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written is rhyme, and touchingly illustrated this book captures the fear a very young child may experience on Halloween. A young boy tells the story of last Halloween when he was scared by all the ghosts, goblins, and monsters who trick-or-treated at his house. The little folks at my storytime nodded when asked if they had ever been scared by all the trick-or-treaters on Halloween and they shared a couple of their own stories. They also correctly guessed that this year would be different for the young boy and correctly predicted that this year he would be the scariest one on Halloween.


Pumpkin Trouble by Jan Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a bright and cheery book featuring three friends duck, mouse and Pig. Duck gets into trouble while trying to carve his Jack-O-Lantern. He goes looking for a little help from his friends with hilarious results. This is a little bit difficult as a group read aloud, because it is graphic novel-like with speech bubbles and conversation happening on multiple places on the page, but the humor and pictures and general silliness more than make up for this.


Moonlight: The Halloween Cat by Cynthia Rylant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a gentle and beautifully illustrated book about Halloween told from the perspective of a black cat who loves the night, especially Halloween Night. The kids hung on every word of the simple text and studied the beautiful illustrations with great interest. This is an amazing book that presents everything that is Halloween in a non-scary and gentle manner. Great ending book for a storytime.

We all did Five Little Ghosts and Five Little Pumpkins as flannel board and fingerplays and then we danced the "Hookey Spookey" before heading out for our parade. Lots of fun!