Lenny’s S.C.R.E.A.M. II

Super Creepy Reading Extravaganza A la Mode:

Back for Seconds

It’s not usually fun to be scared, but sometimes it is. One time it’s fun is when you’re around a campfire sharing ghost stories with your friends. Another time it’s fun to be scared is Halloween. Halloween is about scary stuff like ghosts and monsters, but it’s a fun kind of scary because ghosts and monsters are make-believe.

SCAREDY SQUIRREL PREPARES FOR HALLOWEEN: 

A SAFETY GUIDE FOR SCAREDIES

by Mélanie Watt

[PICTURE BOOK]

Kids Can Press, 2013

Scaredy Squirrel doesn’t think being scared is ever fun. To make himself feel better during Halloween he has plans for how to stay safe. His plans help him feel less scared. He has plans for carving pumpkins, decorating, and eating candy. He also has a map showing trick-or-treaters how to stay away from hungry plants and creepy houses that look like ghosts live in them. There’s another part with ideas for costumes. A “Scare-O-Meter” under different costume pictures shows if the costumes are “unscary,” regular scary, or “terrifying.” The Scare-O-Meter says a super squirrel costume is unscary and a zombie costume is terrifying.

If you don’t like the scary parts of Halloween, you can take Scaredy Squirrel’s advice to use a scarecrow or blender to scare away monsters and to use a plastic knife to safely carve a pumpkin (one that is nice, not scary). If you think Halloween’s scary parts are fun, you’ll like this book because it’s silly and will make you laugh.

DRAGON’S HALLOWEEN

by Dav Pilkey

[PICTURE BOOK]

Orchard Books, 1993

I don’t have a picture of this book. I wish you could see it. Dragon is on the front with his six cats. Dragon is blue. His cats are all different colors. Some are big and some are little. There’s a big yellow autumn moon in the background and trees without any leaves on them.

Dragon likes Halloween for the fun types of scary. In this book there are three stories. In the first story Dragon has to figure out how to make six cute little pumpkins into scary jack-o’-lanterns. In the second story Dragon tries really hard to come up with a scary costume to wear. He finds one by accident. In the third story Dragon gets scared in the way that isn’t fun. When he’s walking through the woods at night, he hears scary sounds. At the end of the story, he finds out what’s making the sounds. It isn’t anything scary. The sound-maker is a surprise that will make you laugh.

CREEPY CARROTS

by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Peter Brown

[PICTURE BOOK]

Simon & Schuster, 2012

Everybody is scared of something. Scaredy Squirrel is scared of bobbing for apples and getting cavities from Halloween candy. Bigfoot thinks clowns are scary. That’s silly. Beverly is scared of spiders. Violet pretends not to be scared of heights, but she is. The rabbit in this book is scared of creepy carrots.

The rabbit’s name is Jasper. Jasper loves regular carrots. His favorite place is Crackenhopper Field where there are lots of carrots to eat. One day the carrots leave the field and follow Jasper home. He isn’t sure at first if they’re really real. When he thinks they’re nearby, he turns to look but just sees regular things like rubber duckies and buckets of orange paint. His parents don’t believe creepy carrots are following Jasper so he has to protect himself from the creepy carrots on his own. I won’t tell you how he does that. I won’t tell you what happens at the end, either. I will tell you there is a surprise ending that has to do with what the creepy carrots are scared of. Everybody is scared of something.

My other S.C.R.E.A.M. list is here. It has lots of books about witches on it. I like witches because they can fly. They don’t scare me at all. I bet you wonder what I am scared of, don’t you? Try and guess.