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The Not-Halloween Book List for Kids

It drives me bananas that my kids’ school doesn’t even recognize the existence of Halloween. Their preschools encouraged costumes, had Halloween parties, and even invited parents to a Halloween parade. The school I taught at, a public elementary school in a rural area (where you might think there would be objections) encouraged costumes, had Halloween parties, and held a costume parade. The day of Halloween, my cadet teacher showed up in a bloodstained cafeteria worker’s uniform with a dismembered arm in her pocket and a beatific smile on her face (which was the scariest part, really). But at the school my children now attend, there’s no such holiday. It’s sad, really. But I understand– public schools are under siege from all directions for the way holidays are celebrated (or not celebrated, for that matter). And there are lots of other schools in the same situation, as well as parents who are looking for slightly spooky but not too scary picture books for their little ones. So here are a few to try out.  Not all of them have been reviewed on the site, but you can click on the titles of the ones we’ve reviewed to find out a little more about them. Enjoy!

 

The Not-Halloween Book List for Kids from MonsterLibrarian.com

 

Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by George Levenson and Shmuel Thayer

This is a great book that traces the growth of a pumpkin’s life cycle. It’s got beautiful photographs and is a perfect complement to the trip to the pumpkin field that kids will probably make either with their class or their parents.

 

Bat Jamboree by Kathi Appelt and Melissa Sweet

Bats definitely have their place in the Halloween season, but it is possible to go batty without ever mentioning the holiday. Bat Jamboree is a very silly concept book that preschoolers and kindergarteners will love. There’s a second book as well, called Bats Around The Clock.

 

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert’s wonderful illustrations and simple language are a perfect way to introduce the colors of the season.

 

Spooky Hayride by Brian James (Level 1 Scholastic Reader)

This is a wonderful easy reader that will satisfy any kid who has ever been tricked by their big brother. Or wanted to trick him.

 

Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane and Jane Manning

This is a fun counting book based on the rhyme “Over in the Meadow”.

 

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Okay, this one can be scary for some kids, but others find it exhilirating, especially when they get to “roll their terrible eyes, and gnash their terrible teeth”.

 

A Beasty Story by Bill Martin, Jr. and Steven Kellogg

Perhaps you are familiar with the story that begins “There was a dark, dark, wood…” Imagine that made into a cartoony concept book that reinforces kids’ knowledge of colors, and you have one of my favorite kindergarten reads. You can’t go wrong with an author/illustration combination like Bill Martin, Jr. and Steven Kellogg!

 

Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler and S.D. Schindler

Skeleton has the hiccups, and desperately wants a cure. It doesn’t get much sillier than watching a skeleton attempt to drink a glass of water in an attempt to get rid of them.

 

The Gobble-uns’ll Git You Ef You Don’t Watch Out! James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley and Joel Schick

Sadly, this book has been out of print for years and years, and it’s doubtful that it ever will be reprinted. But you just can’t have October here without mentioning the great Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley. Even if you can’t get your hands on this wonderfully illustrated book, with its menacing cartoon gobble-uns, find yourself a copy of “Little Orphant Annie” to share with your kids. It’s a fantastic read-aloud. I loved Riley when I was a kid– what an amazing imagination the man had!

Posted on September 16, 2012 by , Reply

Searching for Frankenstein: Finding Scary Stories At The Library

It’s that time of year. It seems like school has just started, and fall, at least here in the Midwest where we FINALLY got some rain, doesn’t seem like it can possibly be coming our way. The Monster Kid’s plotting for his Halloween birthday party has gotten to the invitation stage, and we’re just two weeks from all those “31 Days of Halloween” promotions. The schools in my district are ignoring the fact that Halloween is just around the corner, but they may be the only ones in our community actually succeeding at it.

And with the spooky season looming just ahead, librarians, parents, kids, and even teachers (at least teachers in other school districts) are seeking out scary books for kids (or not so scary books, as the case may be) for storytelling programs (sometimes even storytelling festivals), lesson plans, party ideas, monster stories, chills and thrills, and just plain old fun. Most people don’t have the collection a library has of picture books, chapter books, poetry, cookbooks, monster guides, Halloween tales, scary stories for around the campfire (or a flashlight, if you’re inside) fall crafts, and lesson ideas. So, off to the library we go!

A lot of kids only have access to their school library for information on various topics. So I visited a school library to find out a little about how kids search for (and hopefully find) scary books there. Let me first explain that most school libraries are part of a “specials” rotation (assuming there are “specials” teachers in the school) So kids from each classroom cycle through for half an hour (or maybe an hour) usually once a week. On the other days, the kids will have art, music, and gym. Sometimes this is that class’ only access to the library for that week (depending on the school culture). Often that time has to include a short lesson or story and the kids’ search for books followed by checkout. It’s a lot to handle in half an hour to an hour once a week, especially if you are a solo librarian (hopefully there are volunteers backing you up) with thirty kids to help and check out. Assisting each child individually and keeping order is nearly impossible. So you want to make the kids as independent as they can be in trying to find the books they want (with the side benefit that they will develop the skill to  find them on their own).

An awesome catalog system can be a huge help with this. Gone are the days where you had to teach kids how to find subject, title, and author cards using the arcane subject organization system developed by the Library of Congress. The online catalog is a miracle. I have personally automated a school library and the difference is incredible. It’s not that the LC system isn’t still used, but we now have this amazing tool called the keyword search, which allows people to search using whatever word they think of. The great thing is that something will probably come up that will be related to your topic. The problem is that lots of things will come up that aren’t related to your topic but that have the word or phrase you used in them, someplace in the catalog field.

So let’s say the very busy (and awesome) school librarian is having many demands made on her at once and a kid asks “Where are the scary books”?  And the librarian says “Go type in the word ‘scary’ into the search box for the catalog’. 25 books come up, including a book of poetry about scary animals and  a science book on scary insects. Only five results show on the first screen before you have to click on “next” to see the next five results.

Let me ask you something. When you do a Google search, how many times do you go past the first page or results? Most people don’t. And it’s more than likely that  most kids won’t go past that first screen either. Getting the librarian’s attention a second time may be difficult(thirty kids all clamoring for attention…), so that child might leave without a scary book.

I decided to check my public library’s catalog. When I did a keyword search using “scary” I got 510 results. That’s way too many to be helpful! Then I saw that the list was for ALL the books (and media) in the entire library that came up under the keyword scary. I had to click on a subject heading, Children’s Literature, to refine my search. That was slightly better but still too many to be helpful. My first page gave me 20 results, including one book by Norman Bridwell (author of the Clifford books),  Strawberry Shortcake’s Spooky Night, a Geronimo Stilton book, and a YA title. Okay, “scary” is a pretty nonspecific term. It’s probably likely that the keyword search results would be all over the place. But it is kind of discouraging. I tried some other keywords. “Halloween” brought up completely different results, with the exception of the Bridwell book, and I think all of them would be more satisfying to a kid that what I found when I looked up “scary”. And this is interesting– there were 765 books in the overall collection that came up, and 367 of those were in the children’s collection (chances are a fair amount of them were by R.L. Stine, and many of the books found under “children’s literature” also seemed to be YA titles, but still–  there were not only more relevant results, but from a larger pool of books!

Now, my own kid loves monsters. So I did a search for “monster”.  Wow! 1139 books, 373 of which were in the children’s collection. Many of these were R.L. Stine and YA books, but once again, the first page of results was almost completely different. Still, that is a heck of a lot of books, and as I said, most people won’t go past the first page of results. So I got more specific and did a search for “Halloween monster”.  What a difference. This brought up only 31 books in the entire catalog, 14 of which were children’s titles. That’s a REALLY narrow pool of results. Because I did the earlier searches on “Halloween” and “monster”  I know there are lots of books on each topic– and I’m curious as to why there’s not more overlap. The children’s department in my library has tried to make it easy to find Halloween books (which will also have monsters) by grouping books related to individual holidays together, but obviously there has to be overlap as well as stuff they’ve missed. But that’s a start. What if I want to find a book on a specific monster, though? The Monster Kid is all into those Universal movie monsters, so I decided to search for “Frankenstein”. Would you believe there are 144 titles devoted to Frankenstein in some way, and just 20 in the children’s section?  Four of those were YA titles, and four were graphic novels. But interestingly, the Frankenstein book my son has checked out and sitting in his bedroom upstairs, titled Frankenstein, a Crestwood House book by Ian Thorne, did not show up at all.

So, “look it up in the catalog” is an okay place to start, and it can simplify things if you are searching a small collection or have time and patience to scroll through results and try different keywords (or maybe not, if the first three results that pop up in the school catalog in a search for “monster” are about monster trucks). But simple keyword searches can be tricky– either overwhelming you with information, providing you with a list of titles that doesn’t suit your needs, or even leaving out something you KNOW ought to be there, because you’ve seen it there before. You might find the books in places you won’t expect sometimes (who knew a five year old would have such a desperate need for Halloween cookbooks?) but you might never find them at all, without help.

If your keyword search doesn’t seem to be taking you where you need to go, and you can’t figure out how to successfully narrow your results, don’t be afraid. Ask the librarian. That’s why she, or he, is there… to help find those places where the book you need, or one like it, may be.

Have a bewitching time searching, and finding, what you are looking for, for this coming holiday season!

Posted on September 12, 2012 by , Reply

Real Life Horrors– Treading Carefully With Children

One reason that children read scary stories and horror fiction is that reading them can give them a sense of control– so much of what happens in their lives is outside their control. If nothing else, if they’re not ready to face the darkness, they can close the book, and walk away knowing that what they’ve read is nothing they have to face in their daily lives.

But the scariest stories of all are the stories of events that really happened, or that loom large on the horizon because they are so close to what really could happen. Stories of war, terrorism, genocide, and holocaust can have a deeper impact than any tale of goblins, aliens, or ghosts, at any age, and these always should be chosen and discussed with care (this article on talking to kids about war offers some thoughtful suggestions).

I am not one of those people who think that children need to be completely protected from knowing the evils that exist in this world. I don’t even think it’s really possible to do so. Kids want to know in a concrete way what good and evil really mean. Even if you were able to completely cut off children’s access to any media, unless you keep them locked away, you will have to explain these things sooner than you think. If you’re not ready, you might want to think twice about taking your preschooler to see The Sound of Music.

That said, I don’t think that this is something you need to get into with graphic detail with young children. It’s terrifying, and it really happened. Planes really did crash into the World Trade Towers. There really have been nuclear explosions, with terrible consequences. Prejudice and hatred have caused real damage to many, many people. Little kids, and even some older ones, aren’t equipped to handle the terrible inevitability (or possibility) of these things… they overwhelm and horrify adults when faced head on. There are books for children, especially at the upper elementary and middle school levels, that address these topics with sensitivity, but always tread carefully when discussing them.

Here’s a quote from Judith Vandervelde, an educator at London’s Jewish Museum, that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle, in an article called “Mummy, What was the Holocaust?” :

The philosophy behind teaching young children about the Holocaust is that you take them up to the gates of Auschwitz and no further… education, that is shocking and frightening, damages the child’s… sense of the world and how they perceive others… Be led by them and answer questions as simply as possible. If they want more, they will ask.

I think that’s great advice for talking about many of these topics with children. I remember seeing my first video of the Holocaust as a ninth grader: it made a powerful impact, one that reading the books my mother gave me never had(although I had read many of them, most of them nonfiction). It’s one thing to teach Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes to fifth graders, and another to show them pictures of children with radiation sickness (please don’t).  The book inspires hope, and compassion for the individual; photographs inspire horror. The 2004 Caldecott winner The Man Who Walked Between The Towers(which was also made into a short film)  provides an opening for talking about the events of September 11 (if you choose to) without sharing the graphic stories and images of that day.

Many kids today don’t feel the immediacy of these threats. Either they seem like they are too far away or too long ago to matter. Great-grandparents who could share stories of World War II are in their nineties. The Cuban Missile Crisis is history from long ago. Nuclear threat has somehow receded into the background now that the U.S. and U.S.S.R are no longer superpowers in a Mexican standoff (I don’t mean that there is no nuclear threat, just that it’s not terribly prominent in the minds of most of today’s kids).  The apocalypse itself doesn’t seem to be the focus of YA fiction; rather, it seems to be on surviving in a future post-apocalyptic world (Hunger Games, anyone?).

Still, these events happened, war is often present in their lives (two of my neighbors are in the military), and terrible things that are completely out of the control of children and adults still happen. A time will come when kids need to know more about the world they live in– when you come to that time, please choose your approach, and resources, carefully (of course, you never know what that teachable moment will be– here’s a story about one conversation that was kickstarted by watching Indiana Jones).

If you’d like to try addressing one of these difficult topics using books rather than action movies, I’ve made some suggestions below.

 

Picture Book Recommendations

Picture books can be a great way to connect with kids on these topics, because picture books are short, attention grabbing, and easy to share. Reading picture books aloud with an adult is a familiar routine for most kids and is a great setup for informal discussion. Since they depend on visuals, make sure to take a look at them before assuming that they’re all appropriate for the youngest children.

 

Promise of a New Spring: The Holocaust and Renewal by Gerda Weissman Klein

A beautiful picture book– it does not deal directly with the Holocaust, but focuses on the life cycles of a forest and what happens when those are disrupted. This one could be used with children as young as 5 or 6, if you can find a copy(published in 1982, it’s now unfortunately out of print).

Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Stephen Gammell

The tale Eve Bunting shares is based on Martin Niemoller’s famous statement, and once again takes place in a forest. It is a picture book, but keep in mind that the black and white illustrations are by Stephen Gammell, who illustrated Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, so know what your child can handle. I definitely wouldn’t give it to a child under seven. It is often used with middle school and high school students.

 

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

The true story of Philippe Petit, who walked between the World Trade Towers on a tightrope, this offers an opening to discussing the events of September 11, 2001. This 2004 Caldecott winner could certainly be shared with children as young as 5 or 6. It’s also been made into a short animated film from Weston Woods.

 

The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman

This picture book  focuses on Hassan, a refugee child from Somalia, who starts to communicate in school through artwork. The impressionistic illustrations soften some difficult images, while still respectful of its subject. Due to the topic (the civil war in Somalia) most children under 7 may not have the maturity to deal with it. In places with large Somali populations (like Minneapolis) using it with the lower grades could be very effective.

 

Gleam and Glow by Eve Bunting

This picture book tells the story of two Bosnian children and their mother, who are forced to leave their home for a refugee camp, and return home to find that in spite of the devastation of war, their goldfish have flourished. Gorgeous oil paintings illuminate the story. I’ve used this book as a read-aloud with children in grades K-3.

 

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter

A picture book relating the true story of Alia Muhammed Baker, the head librarian of the Central Library in Basra, Iraq, who, with her friends, saved 30,000 books before the library was destroyed.  I shared this with my son when he was under the age of 7- it is a testament to the power of one (and an amazing librarian, at that).

 

Sami and the Time of the Troubles by Florence Parry Heide

In this picture book, ten year old Sami and his family do their best to survive in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. I’d suggest waiting until your child is nine or ten to share this one.

 

Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops by Jill Biden

There is not much out there for kids whose parents are in the military and are deployed. One of my neighbors, who has a daughter, was deployed for several years. It makes a major impact on these kids and their families.  Of all the topics I mentioned above, this is the one that is most likely to hit home with kids today. I have not had a chance to look at this one personally, but I plan to seek it out. First Lady Jill Biden wrote it after watching her five year old granddaughter cope with her father’s deployment for a year. For ages 5 and older.

 

The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss

This is Dr. Seuss’ commentary on the Cold War, although most kids won’t read it with that understanding. The Yooks and the Zooks are in an escalating series of events over the deeply controversial issue of whether to eat bread with the butter side up or the butter side down, ending with both sides having the capacity to destroy the world. Since it’s Dr. Seuss, the illustrations are fantastical and the rhymes are infectious, but the message is a serious one that kids should understand even without historical context.

 

Posted on September 6, 2012 by , Reply
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