Children’s Books for Halloween

Carol E Borrowman, the book expert on The Morning Blend came up with this list of fun reads for your kids this time of year.

Thought I’d pass it along!

1. “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams and Megan Lloyd

young readers (2-5)

This is the perfect picture book for Halloween, especially for children 3 and under. It’s about an old lady who’s followed through the woods to her house by a ghostly pair of shoes, pants, shirt and then a giant pumpkin head. It has colorful illustrations, a great story (appropriately scary) and lots of SHAKING and STOMPING, CLAPPING and COMPING.

A great book for an older sibling who likes to read aloud to a younger one.

 

2. “Halloween Night” by Marjorie Dennis Murray & Brandon Dorman

young readers (2-5)

A group of scary characters–zombies, witches, ogres, mummies, monsters and more–gather in a haunted house the night before Halloween. The book follows the traditional “T’was the night before Christmas,” but it starts “‘Twas Halloween night, and all through the house/Every creature was stirring, including the mouse.” The images are exciting and it ends with a surprise.

Bone Soup

3. And finally for the young monsters in your house, the classic picture book, “Bone Soup” by Cambria Evans, which has Finnigan the ogre making soup with “spider eggs…dried mouse droppings…toe nails” and lots of other yellow greenish grossness. Always a favorite of mine.

For the older ghouls and boys

4. “Anna Dressed in Blood” by Kendare Blake

This book has the perfect balance of gore and romance about a young man, Cassio, a ghost hunter, who encounters Anna, a murderous ghost. She’s killing anyone who enters her haunted Victorian mansion.  Except she spares Cassio. Why? Full of secrets and curses and lots of bloooood! This was one of last year’s best teen horror novels of the year. A great read.

5. “The Diviners” by Libby Bray

 

This book came out last month. It’s a terrific supernatural mystery. Evie O’Neill, a libvely likeable teenager, is running around New York in the 1920s “with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets.” But home life is far from glamorous. She lives with her Uncle Will, curator of “The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies” (the Museum of American Folklore and Superstition). Together they get involved and Evie discovers a supernatural secret about herself.