As I mentioned in this post, we don’t make a big deal about Halloween here at the Yankee Homestead. When the kids get a bit older, I’d like to explore the holiday’s history, but for now we just carve pumpkins in October and dress up on Halloween night.
I’m not a huge fan of all the spookiness that accompanies most Halloween celebrations and is found in most Halloween-themed children’s books. So, while we love to celebrate holidays and seasons with a collection of favorite books, Halloween is one holiday for which we have only a few recommendations.
These are the books we enjoy reading in celebration of Halloween:
Cranberry Halloween (Wende & Harry Devlin) [4-8 yrs]
Note: There is an entire series of Cranberry books, all of which we’ve really enjoyed. We especially love the Thanksgiving and Christmas books. Our fondness for those books is what led us to this title.
As yet another Cranberryport holiday approaches, the characters from Cranberry Thanksgiving and Cranberry Christmas are busy raising money to rebuild the storm-swept town dock. Old seaman Mr. Whiskers is appointed treasurer over mean Mr. Grape’s protests; but when the townspeople assemble to count the money on Halloween night, neither Maggie, the little girl of the series, nor Mr. Whiskers has appeared. As readers have witnessed, they’ve been ambushed by pirates and chased to a spooky old vacant house–but Mr. Whiskers knows a way out through the springhouse, and so the two arrive at the Town Hall celebration in time to expose the pirates as Mr. Grape’s two gardeners, acting on his orders. Familiar fare, for partakers of the Devlins’ predictable cheer. [Source]
It’s Pumpkin Time! (Zoe Hall; Shari Halpern) [2-4 yrs]
A brightly colored journey through the life of a pumpkin, from seed to jack-o-lantern. The last few years we’ve grown our own pumpkins, so this book was perfect. We tried to grow pumpkins again this year, but the blasted squash bugs got them all. We did have an abundant gourd harvest, which made up for the pumpkin loss. If your family enjoys carving pumpkins, this book is a great go-along.
Too Many Pumpkins (Linda White; Megan Lloyd) [4-8 yrs]
What a delightful story! We just discovered it this year and are excited to add it to our personal collection. Another great go-along for pumpkin-carving, as well as pumpkin-pie-making or pumpkin-anything!
What do you do when your childhood experiences have led you to, quite frankly, hate pumpkins, and through an odd twist of circumstances you end up with a houseful of them?! Make the best of it! Too Many Pumpkins is a wonderful (and educational–watch the seeds grow!) Autumn/Halloween book without the spooks and goblins that aren’t always suitable for a bedtime story. This is a delightful read with beautiful illustrations that your children will love, and you won’t mind reading it “just one more time.” Go ahead–read it with your little Pumpkin…and then bake a pumpkin pie together. [From Amazon reviewer Christy Bagasao]
October (a poem from the superb Chicken Soup With Rice: A Book of Months by genius author/illustrator Maurice Sendak) [all ages]
In October I’ll be host
To witches, goblins and a ghost
I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast
Whoopy once, whoopy twice
Whoopy chicken soup with rice
A few words on age recommendations for books:
[2-4 yrs]–fewer words
[4-8 yrs]–more words
To borrow the words of Gladys Hunt in one of my favorite books about, well, books [Honey for a Child’s Heart]: Listing books according to age is risky because maturity and reading levels vary so much. She goes on to say:
Picture books at the outset seem simple, but the good ones say important things that will furnish your children with good concepts, ideas to talk about and think through, ideas to stick in a child’s mind for years to come. Don’t dismiss them too quickly, especially for ages six through eight. Develop a mind-set that thinks from the child’s point of view. Often a book will tug at your own heart, giving you new insights and even a new direction for you and your children to explore. In a hurry to grow up, some children (and their parents) skip books that could influence their character profoundly.
I completely agree, and at the same time I recognize the need to have some way of classifying books according to length. My six-year-old still loves many of the books I’d classify as [2-4], while my two-year-old would never sit still for many of the books labeled [4-8]. My advice is to consider the age recommendations loosely, especially for the older crowd.
Yankee Homestead 