Halloween Bookworms

When the air gets colder and the days get shorter, you know that Autumn is here. The cold and the darkness also encourage more indoor activities. Tops on the list for me is reading. Last year I posted my favorite reads for October. I usually like to read creepy, scary or other generally Halloween related stories at this time of year. Not only do I like to read for myself, I especially enjoy, reading to the kids. Each of our kids has a veritable library of books. Early on, Lady Di and I thought that books and reading should be important to raising our kids. That's why we just can't say no to any book order forms from school, any book fairs they have or any garage sale practically giving away books. We give books to the kids for gifts and make regular trips to the library. All of these activities have led up to an avalanche of books in our house.

Part of our book organization is to keep some seasonal books separate from the rest. We have Christmas books, Easter books, Thanksgiving books, Spring books and Halloween books each in their own basket. This makes it easier to choose our favorite books during certain times of the year.

Here are the books we are reading for October.

Sweet Pea is starting to read some books herself, but still likes us to read them to her at bedtime. Her list includes, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything, Spooky Hour, Clifford's Halloween, Kick-a-Lot Shoes and Happy Haunting Amelia Bedelia. Her number one favorites are Pumpkin Soup and Skeleton Hiccups. My favorite part of Skeleton Hiccups is when I get to yell, Boo! , when the ghost is trying to scare the hiccups away. I usually turn the previous page extra slowly to build the suspense and I try my best to jump out of the bed when the explosive Boo! is released.

Most of these books were enjoyed by Number One Son when he was in the single digit age group. Now that he is into his double digits, he has moved on to more challenging and somewhat scarier stories.

This year he has discovered R.L. Stine. He checked out The Haunting Hour from the library and tore right through it. We just finished Scary Stories for Sleepovers and have started the second Harry Potter book. We do have some Goosebump books for later in the month too. Even though he has graduated to chapter books, he will request an old picture book, The Vanishing Pumpkin, every once in a while.

One last family literary tradition is most years, Lady Di will receive a book from her favorite author for our anniversary. She loves to read Nicholas Sparks books and usually finishes them in a few days. For Halloween they are not very scary, but many of his books seem to be released around this time of year. So I will include him in our October reading list.

With the outside weather matching the settings in our Halloween books, it seems to make the dreary days more interesting and fun. It also makes the reading more cozy as we have to cover up with blankets and get close to take turns reading the pages. Well, it's time to start another book. Maybe today we will read in a dining room chair tent or outside in the clubhouse. Wherever we decide, we can't go wrong reading.

Are You Scared?

Now that October is here, I'm feeling that creepy feeling again. And I mean creepy in a Halloweenie sense. For some reason, every year, when the air gets cooler and trees start to look barer, I'm more interested in spooky things. Our satellite television also starts to show more horror movies. It seems a dozen or more channels are running Hitchcock marathons. That's fine with me since I do not usually watch horror films, but I love Hitchcock movies. Along with Hitchcock films, I can choose from one of the Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th sequels. If you add up all of the movies in those three series I think you come up with seventy-three or so. Or maybe it just seems like that many.

Anyway, it's a great time to catch up on horror classics as well. Nosferatu is a great silent vampire film. Plus, any movie with Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff is worth trying out. I also like the cheesy vampire movies from the seventies. The Captain Kronos, vampire hunter, series is campy enough for all. As you can see, I don't require actual fright when choosing my horror films. I like suspense and old castles. And I can even live without the suspense, as long a film has a crumbling, ancient, dusty, castle on a cliff with constant lightning in the background. Some creepy 'Phantom of the Opera' organ music is a must too. I am not a big fan of slasher movies. I don't care much for the gore, torture or rape. I'm pretty sure that I will never watch Saw. That is why I watch more of the older films. The first Halloween movie now seems tame enough for me after twenty plus years.

I am also drawn to reading more horror stories in October. There is nothing better than reading the Tell-Tale Heart by Poe on a chilly, drizzly day. Again, I like the classics better than more modern tales. Among my favorites are Frankenstein by Shelly, because it has a castle in it, and The Halloween Tree by Bradbury. Ray Bradbury has a whole list of good October stories. I usually lean more toward stories with bleak, depressing settings to match the weather. I just seem to get more out of them. This fall I decided to re-read Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Wow! Another rocking castle) I'm reading it slowly this time to really get into it.

This is the only time of year that I feel this way. I don't seem to enjoy spookiness (or castles) as much during the rest of the year. Once October is over, I have to start looking forward to Thanksgiving and then on to Christmas. By then, all of the macabre has left me. So now is the time get your Halloween fix, before the 'Happy' holidays start. Put out your pumpkins and 'bring out yer dead'.

Reading Is Fundamental

Now that school is in session, I get to enjoy something on a monthly basis that I always miss during the summer vacation. No, I'm not talking about anything amorous. I'm talking about the Scholastic Book Orders. Those three or four page catalogs that the kids bring home from school that offer to sell you discounted books. I love these catalogs! These offers appeal to me at two levels. First, I love to read and second, I am very cheap. Where else can you get a Harry Potter set for $50? I just like looking through them, even if I don't buy anything. Our catalogs usually have many classics of children's literature. Authors, E. B. White, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Roald Dahl are regulars. I'm sorry to say that I don't care for about half of the books in the flier. The Spongebob, Dora and other cartoon based books usually don't rise to the challenge of children's literature. There seems to be a lot more Barbie, Bratz and any other Nickelodeon show books too. But, whatever gets kids to read is OK with me. In the past, we have enjoyed a few Scooby Doo chapter books. The pictures were few and the mystery was entertaining. Even though I knew the monster was going to be a guy or girl in a costume, like it always is. And yes, the bad guys would have gotten away with it, if weren't for those meddling kids.

We have used Scholastic to build the kids library quite extensively. Children's book companies, lately, like to get you hooked on a series. That way, every time a new book is published in the series, you have to buy it or else. That also sets you up to buy their 'boxed sets' if your child likes the first book in the series. This isn't so bad when the grandparents start sniffing around for Christmas list ideas. Number One Son's favorite book sets include 'Magic Treehouse', 'Jack Sparrow' and 'Magic School Bus'. Sweet Pea likes 'Clifford', 'Curious George' and 'Frog and Toad'.

I enjoy reading these books as much as the kids do. I don't always get a lot of time for real reading. Reading the Sears ad in the bathroom doesn't count. N1S's books usually have some history or science lesson hidden in the story. I usually learn as much as he does. SP's books often have wonderful artwork and a good moral. Along with the good read, I get to enjoy time with my children teaching and entertaining.

I also like how these book orders mark the change of seasons. There are Halloween and leaf books in the fall, and Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa books in the winter. They also give me a timely 'heads up' for when Valentine's Day is approaching. We keep our seasonal books in a separate basket and bring them out during the appropriate season. We have to read 'Skeleton Hiccups' every fall, and 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' every winter.

If your school offers Scholastic book orders, I advise you to take advantage of it. If you don't like a book you buy, you're only out a couple bucks. The only down side is that your kids' rooms will overflow with books. We have donated a couple laundry baskets full back to the school already. I know we probably buy too many, but how can you say no?

I am hoping that the children enjoy their books enough to revisit them when they are older. When they get old enough to actually read for pleasure, maybe they will pick a book from their shelf at random and be reminded of the first time it was read to them. Hopefully, their memories will be strong enough to enjoy the same books with their own kids. When that day comes, I will be ready to play the role of 'the Grampa who reads to us'.

I would, hopefully, like to be known to my grand kids as 'the Grampa with hair' too.