Violet’s S.C.R.E.A.M.

Super Creepy Reading Extravaganza A la Mode

I’m Violet and I love Halloween because I love treats and costumes and carving pumpkins and running through corn mazes and making spider decorations and making witch decorations and making skeleton decorations. But do you know what the best part of Halloween is? If you don’t know I will tell you that the best part of Halloween is that you get to read Halloween books. And if you don’t know what some good Halloween books to read at Halloween are I will tell you.

BY THE LIGHT OF THE HALLOWEEN MOON

by Caroline Stutson, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes

[PICTURE BOOK]

Marshall Cavendish, 2009 (originally: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1993)

This is a good book to read at Halloween and it is a really good book to have read out loud to you at Halloween because the words are sing-songy and there are sentences that repeat that you can say out loud along with whoever is reading this book out loud to you.

This book is about a person’s tapping toe and the black cat and the witch and the bat and the ghoul and the other Halloweeny creatures who want to get the tapping toe. The person with the tapping toe is sitting on a dock and the person’s legs are dangling over the edge of the dock and the person’s tapping toe is all alone at the end of the person’s bare foot where the black cat and the witch and the bat and the ghoul and the other Halloweeny creatures can grab it. That probably sounds scary but this is not a scary book. It is a funny book because the creatures don’t get the tapping toe because the witch stops the black cat and the bat stops the witch and the ghoul stops the bat and the tapping toe is safe and at the end of the book you find out that the tapping toe is a little girl’s toe and she is tapping her toe to the music she is playing on her violin and then all the Halloweeny creatures dance to the music.

THE SLEEPLESS LITTLE VAMPIRE

by Richard Egielski

[PICTURE BOOK]

Arthur A. Levine-Scholastic, 2011

If you like Halloween books that have lots of different Halloweeny creatures you will like THE SLEEPLESS LITTLE VAMPIRE. The little vampire is trying to go to bed but he can’t fall asleep and he wonders if it’s because of all the creatures who are making noise and those creatures are spiders and bats and cockroaches and a werewolf and skeletons and a witch and ghosts and all those creatures are dancing and making noise. But there is a surprise reason why the little vampire can’t fall asleep but I’m not going to tell you what the reason is because that would ruin the surprise. I like this book and the pictures in this book are fun to look at and I like the ghosts who look surprised even before the surprise ending and I like that the little vampire’s cuddly sleep-time toy is a Frankenstein’s monster and that his blanket has pictures of skulls on it.

I NEED MY MONSTER

by Amanda Noll, illustrated by Howard McWilliam

[PICTURE BOOK]

Flash Light, 2009

This is another book about a boy who has trouble falling asleep at bedtime except this boy is just a regular boy and not a vampire and the reason he can’t fall asleep is that the monster under his bed is on vacation and the replacement monsters aren’t scary enough. One replacement monster doesn’t have long enough claws and one replacement monster has a silly, long tongue and there are other replacement monsters that the boy doesn’t think are good under-the-bed monsters for him. The pictures of all the monsters are fun to look at and the story is funny not scary and the boy finally falls asleep but you will have to read the book to find out how he is able to fall asleep because I’m not going to tell you.

BEWARE OF THE FROG

by William Bee

[PICTURE BOOK]

Candlewick, 2008

Monsters like under-the-bed monsters can be scary but this is a book about a creature that even monsters are scared of and that creature is a frog. The monsters in this book are a goblin with a striped hat, a blue troll, and an ogre who carries a fork with him in case he runs into somebody he wants to eat. You wouldn’t think a frog could scare monsters but this frog protects Mrs. Collywobbles from the monsters who come to her house and he protects her by eating the monsters and that is funny because he swallows them whole even though they are bigger than he is. After the goblin and the troll and the ogre have been eaten up Mrs. Collywobbles kisses the frog to thank him and then some funny things happen that I won’t tell you about because you’ll have more fun reading this book if you are surprised at the ending. And I bet you are thinking that the frog eats Mrs. Collywobbles at the end because that would be surprising but I promise that is not what happens.

BABYMOUSE #9: MONSTER MASH

by Jennifer L. Holm, illustrated by Matthew Holm

[GRAPHIC NOVEL]

Random House, 2008

Halloween isn’t just about vampires and witches and skeletons and ghosts. Halloween is also about treats and costumes and what costume you wear to go trick-or-treating in so that you can get treats. This Babymouse story is about how Babymouse wants to be a zombie for Halloween but Felicia the mean cat and the other mean girls tell her that only boys wear scary costumes so Babymouse feels like she has to wear a fairy costume instead. And then Felicia invites herself and the other mean girls to Babymouse’s Halloween party and Babymouse gets stuck going trick-or-treating with them and she doesn’t have any fun because they make her do mean tricks to the neighbors like throwing eggs at their houses and they also steal candy from little kids. I like Babymouse books especially when Babymouse has daydreams and in this book she daydreams that the Creature from the Black Locker lives in her locker and that Felicia is a blood-sucking vampire. At the end of the story Babymouse puts on her zombie costume and the mean girls get scared away and Halloween is saved.

MERCY WATSON: PRINCESS IN DISGUISE

by Kate DiCamillo, with illustrations by Chris Van Dusen

[EARLY READER]

Candlewick, 2007

Mercy Watson is a pig and she’s like Babymouse and doesn’t want to wear a frilly Halloween costume. Mercy doesn’t want to wear any costume at all. She just wants the trick-or-treat treats and so she wears the princess costume that Mrs. Watson makes for her. The costume is funny and there is a picture of Mercy in her costume and it is pink with a big pink bow and she has a tiara too and in case you don’t know what a tiara is it is a fancy crown that princesses wear. Mercy does not look happy about wearing the costume but she loves buttered toast and she thinks she will get buttered toast if she wears a costume and goes trick-or-treating. If you have gone trick-or-treating you know that buttered toast is not one of the treats that people give trick-or-treaters so it is funny that Mercy thinks she will get buttered toast on Halloween. Mercy always causes lots of problems in her books even though she doesn’t mean to and she causes problems in this book by chasing the neighbor ladies’ cat and then a lot of people in costumes chase Mercy while she is chasing the cat and that is funny. Mercy doesn’t get get buttered toast when she goes trick-or-treating but everybody gets buttered toast at the Halloween party at the end.

THE COSTUME COPYCAT

by Maryann Macdonald, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

[PICTURE BOOK]

Dial-Penguin, 2006

This is another book about Halloween costumes and I like this book a lot because it has a good story and good pictures. It’s about a girl named Angela who has an older sister named Bernadette and every year Bernadette wears a better Halloween costume than Angela and gets more attention than Angela. Every year Angela wears the costume that Bernadette wore the year before but then Bernadette has an even better costume so Angela is never happy with her costume. Angela finally has a good Halloween the year she decides she won’t copy Bernadette any more and she makes a costume all on her own and she dresses up as a ghost with a hat. When Angela and Bernadette go trick-or-treating there are lots and lots of other kids trick-or-treating and they are all wearing Halloween costumes and those costumes are fun to look at and my favorite is the wolf costume but I also like the dinosaur costume and the alien costume and all the other costumes. There are lots of good ideas in this book for Halloween costumes but I still don’t know what I will be for Halloween.

What do you think my Halloween costume should be?