October always has me thinking. When Hazel was young, we would avoid Halloween displays in stores. They scared her too much. It was hard to go anywhere, and the displays got put up earlier and earlier every year. She was easily frightened, and I had to be careful what I exposed her to. However, she loved dressing up for Halloween. (Perhaps this is why she wants to go into theater.) I have been thinking back to some of our favorite Halloween books and I thought I would share some of them and more with you! This round-up includes our favorite books and books we enjoyed when she was young and more recent ones as well as DVDs, costumes and some crafts and activities to go with the books.
Our Favorite Halloween Books
Now over the years we have read many Halloween books and reviewed or shared them with you. Our top four books are these four. You will see we did various activities with them which shows you how much we liked them.
Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman
Over the years we shared this book often. We did many crafts to go with it as well as a memory game. The book is sweet. It is about a witch who grew a big pumpkin but cannot get it off the vine. Various Halloween creatures come by and try to get the pumpkin off the vine, but it isn't until the smallest one comes and suggests they work together that the pumpkin gets picked and the witch can make her pumpkin pie which she shares with all of her friends who helped pick the pumpkin. She then plants a pumpkin seed for next year. Here are some activities and crafts we have done to go with this book.
- Big Pumpkin story stones
- Needle Felted Characters (Adult craft for kids to play with)
- Toilet Paper Roll Characters
- Baking a Pumpkin Pie with Homegrown Pumpkin
- Halloween Match Game (Doesn't completely match book but could just use pumpkin and characters)
The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything by Linda D. Williams
In this sweet book there is a little old lady who goes out into the woods to find some food. She strays a little too far and long and on her way home is chased by various pieces of clothing. She claims to not be afraid of anything but walks faster and faster as each new thing is added. However, when she is home and there is a knock on the door, she makes a deal with the clothing and goes to bed. When she awakes the next morning there is a new scarecrow in her garden. We always had fun with the actions the clothing makes. You can see them on the story stones I made to go with the book. We did several activities with this book as well and read it every year for a long time!
Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
This book we were lucky enough to share as a book and a DVD review. It is the tale of a witch and her cat out for a ride on the broom. The witch keeps losing things and when she goes to find it she finds more animals that want a ride on her broom. She keeps making room. Then they encounter a dragon who wants to eat the witch. When we think the witch has been captured her friends manage to scare away the dragon. We did a few crafts to go with this story.
Trick-Or-Treat, Smell My Feet! by Lisa Desimini
This was a book we found at our local library and Hazel loved it! It is the tale of how two witch sisters play a trick on the kids in their neighborhood when they cast a spell to make it so the kids can only say "Smell my feet" instead of trick-or-treat. The trick involves smelly socks, and the sisters have been collecting them for some time for this spell. However, it backfires and the witches end up as babies. To go with this book we made a witch face cut-out.
More Children's Halloween Books
Now every book cannot be a favorite but there are still plenty of good ones out there. Here are some more Halloween books we have enjoyed over the years. Be sure to check out some of our recent Halloween reviews as well.
- Five Little Pumpkins by Iris Van Rynbach (we made an activity glove to go with this book) Note: there are many versions of this book available by different authors including board books.
- A Costume for Charly by C.K. Malone is a book that is about gender identity and perfect for kids who may be questioning their own. We shared our review of this book here.
- Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere by Smiriti Prasadam-Halls We reviewed this book and shared a pumpkin craft round-up.
- All Hallows Eve: The Story of the Halloween Fairy by Lisa Sterlazza Johnson We shared a similar story about the pumpkin fairy.
- Skelly's Halloween by David Martin Our review for this book and the others in the graphic are here.
- Bone Soup: A Spooky, Tasty Tale by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
- Eleanor Wyatt Princess and Pirate by Rachael MacFarlane Another book about gender identity and how girls can be both a princess and a pirate.
- Books about Pumpkins (and for even more Pumpkin themed books go here)
- The Hallo-wiener by Dav Pilkey We shared about this book here.
- The Night Before Halloween by Natasha Wing We shared about this book here.
- Weird But True: Halloween by Julie Beer and Michelle Harris We shared some of these fun facts as lunch notes (31--one for each day in October) with our review.
- Animal Zombies! by Chana Stiefel not completely Halloween themed but interesting. There are also some other Halloween books for older kids with this review.
- The Monsters of Marymount Mansion by Gregory G. Allen is for 7-10-year-olds. Our review includes a round-up of monster crafts
- Begone the Raggedy Witches by Celine Kiernan This book is for slightly older kids (9-12). Our review is here.
Children's Halloween DVDs
We also enjoyed watching some Halloween themed DVDs that were not too scary for Hazel when she was young.
2. The Wiggles: Wiggly Halloween in our review we shared some Halloween snacks and a craft
3. WordWorld Halloween Fun! Our review is here.
Christian Halloween Crafts & Activities
One thing I did focus on when Hazel was younger was our Christianity. She went to Christian schools until the pandemic. It was also a way for me to take some of her fear away around Halloween. Here are some of the Christian crafts and activities we did to celebrate Halloween.
2) The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs with crafts to go with it here.
3) Halloween Tract from Let the Children Come
4) Christian Halloween Party with review, crafts, games, and printables
Non-Scary Halloween Costumes & Dress Up Supplies
As I mentioned Hazel loved dressing up. Here are some of her Halloween costumes as well as other dress up supplies from her younger years!
2. Rapunzel (Fourth Halloween--She wore this homemade costume for a long time as well)
4. Kangaroo (Sixth Halloween--She wore this costume everywhere for years!)
5. Princess in Black (Seventh Halloween)
6. Costume Accessories (She used these for dress up and imaginative play)
7. Dish and Spoon (Third Halloween)
9. Cinderella (Fifth Halloween)
