Two Treats -- No Tricks -- for Halloween!

The signs of Halloween have been hard to miss. Decorations on doorsteps. Thriving Halloween pop-up shops. Costume parades at many preschools and elementary schools this week. Tonight was finally the night for many of us to hover behind our doors, waiting for the bell to ring so we could be charmed by all those darling costumes and all those little voices reciting "Trick or Treat!"

Well, here are two treats of a different kind, delivered straight to your computer screens this Halloween evening...or perhaps a day or so later by the time some of you read this.

The first treat is a short, playful poem I wrote to capture the spirit of Halloween, at least from the perspective of young children, many of whom are all about dressing up and trick or treating with friends...

Ghosts and goblins. 

Wicked witches.

Frankensteins with

Monster stiches.

Friends with frightful

Faces meet…

Knock. Knock. 

Who’s there? 

Trick or treat!

The second treat is the new picture book Monster Boogie by Laurie Berkner and Ben Clanton. In addition to being an author, Laurie is a singer and songwriter with many a catchy tune for young children under her belt. Monster Boogie is actually one of her songs turned into a book!

The big purple monster you see on the cover of the book does the "monster boogie" and the "monster wiggle" with a young brother-and-sister duo all "round the room." As you'll see from the following YouTube video of Laurie singing the song for a group of children in monster masks, it is very infectious! This book is perfect for getting kids moving -- at home, during story time at the library, or in a dance class. And don't forget to play the song after reading the book to really get the kids moving around your room! 

Happy Halloween!

Nutcracker Season Is Here!

It's only September, but ballet schools across the country are already holding auditions for the holiday favorite The Nutcracker. I finally convinced my 8-year-old and 10-year-old daughters to try out for a local production this year. Luckily, as with many recreational ballet schools, this one tries to cast everyone who auditions. The girls auditioned last Saturday, and we have just a few days left before we find out their parts!

While we're waiting, I thought I would do a little research to see what Nutcracker-themed picture books have just been published or will be coming out soon. As I expected, I found quite a few! Here are the four I'm most looking forward to reading...

Written in verse by Kristyn Crow with illustrations by Molly Idle, Zombelina Dances The Nutcracker is a follow-up to Zombelina, which introduced readers to a young Zombie who loves to dance. In the new book, Zombelina and her friend Lizzie need to figure out how to save The Nutcracker production they're supposed to dance in at the local opera house.

Rachel Isadora's Bea in The Nutcracker is another sequel -- to Bea at Ballet. The first book was a concept book, introducing young children to the components of a ballet class. Bea in The Nutcracker breaks down the components of a classical ballet, using The Nutcracker as an example.

I don't know too much about this version of The Nutcracker by Stephanie Spinner and Peter Malone, except that it comes with a CD of the Tchaikovsky score. But the cover really draws me in, and I'd love to see more of the illustrations!

The Nutcracker Comes to America: How Three Ballet-loving Brothers Created a Holiday Tradition also piqued my interested. Written by Chris Barton with illustrations by Cathy Gendron, this book tells the story of how The Nutcracker, which is a Russian ballet, became such a special tradition in the United States.

A few years ago I wrote a post on the blog Dance Advantage about some of my favorite Nutcracker books at that time. You can read the post here, in case you are looking for more dance books this holiday season.

Do you have a favorite Nutcracker picture book? Or do any of the new ones look interesting to you? I'd love to hear!

A Nutcracker Picture Book Countdown!

My two girls and I have tickets to see the Maryland Youth Ballet's version of The Nutcracker this weekend. It's become a bit of a family tradition, and this will be our third year going. We're all very excited!

In anticipation of the weekend, we started reading Nutcracker picture books last night. Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite by Anna Harwell Celenza and Don Tate was the first on our list, and we have three more lined up for the rest of the week. I'm guest posting about all four books today on Dance Advantage (a wonderful online dance resource for dance students, parents, and educators). I hope you'll check it out!

Have you ever been to a performance of The Nutcracker? Do you have a favorite Nutcracker picture book you'd like to share?

If You're a Monster and You Know It...

Read It. Move It. Share It. 
Maria from Maria's Movers lives in New York City, so I'm very glad she is safe and has power after the storm -- two things that made it possible for her to still participate in our monthly post. Each month I recommend a book for Maria to use in her creative movement classes, and then we both share out experiences with the book. This month we explore If You're a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca Emberley and Caldecott Medalist Ed Emberley. It's a fun book for Halloween!

Written and designed by Rebecca Emberley and illustrated by Ed Emberley, If You're a Monster and You Know It is one of many picture books created by this prolific father-daughter duo. Like many of the books they have collaborated on, this one is full of energy and bright colors. It's also full of monsters (the not-so-scary kind) who love to move and groove...

If you're a monster and you know it, wiggle your warts 

If you're a monster and you know it, wiggle your warts 

If you're a monster and you know it, 

and you really want to show it, 

If you're a monster and you know it -- wiggle your warts

WIGGLE WIGGLE

Do you recognize that tune? If You're Happy and You Know It is a favorite song of many young children, so I'm sure lots of children will have a great time singing the song in this book, too. In fact, the book comes with a free download of the song sung by Adrian Emberley -- the daughter of Rebecca Emberley and the granddaughter of Ed Emberley! 

In addition to wiggling their warts, the monsters in this book stomp their paws and twitch their tails. They also like to make a lot of noise, so you can find them smacking their claws, snorting and growling, and roaring. The end of the book even has a pull-out spread showing the animals doing all the movements and making all the sounds at the same time...

If you're a monster and you know it, do it all!

SNORT GROWL     

SMACK SMACK

STOMP STOMP     

TWITCH TWITCH

WIGGLE WIGGLE     

ROAR ROAR

In classic Ed Emberley style, the illustrations are extremely colorful and a little abstract. The monsters on the cover are a good representation of what you will find inside, with the boldly colored monsters popping out against a black background on every page. 

Each stanza of the song is actually given four full pages (two two-page spreads), with the second two-page spread devoted solely to the movement or sound emphasized on the previous spread. If you look closely, you'll see that the illustrations on the second two-page spread are really close-ups of some of the body parts of the monsters on the previous pages. I think it will make flipping through the book fun for little ones, especially those who can't yet read and will really notice all the little details.

I picked this book for Maria to try with her classes for a few reasons. First of all, it's October, and monsters seems to fit in really well! I also thought the illustrations and song would be very popular with her young students and provide lots of ideas for movement. The fact that the book comes with downloadable music is an extra bonus that would make using it in class even easier! 

Let's see what Maria thinks about this book here. And, if you're in the mood for some other monster books with creative input from the Emberley clan, you can check out these...

• There Was an Old Monster!
• Go Away, Big Green Monster!
• Glad Monster, Sad Monster

It's a Halloween Poetry Party!

Thank goodness for libraries! I discovered two fabulous Halloween books at our local library a few weeks ago. Both are written in rhyme and each involves a nighttime party that lasts until dawn. I know lots of little boys and girls are looking forward to Halloween parties in their neighborhoods, preschools, and elementary schools over the next couple of weeks, and these two books would be perfect for extending that party spirit into reading time at home.

Rattlebone Rock is a delightful book written by Sylvia Andrews and illustrated by Jennifer Plecas. My copy is due back to the library tomorrow, and when I tried to renew it, the library wouldn't let me because other people are waiting to check it out. It must be a popular book, and I can certainly see why...

Folks in the town

Still talk of the night

When the moon on the graveyard

Shone so bright

That the spirits there

Made the tombstones knock

And the beat began 

For the Rattlebone Rock.

BOOMA-BOOM! BOOMA-BOOM!

The party in this book takes place in a graveyard, which might normally be a scary place for young children. But the text of the book is so festive, and the illustrations so far from scary, that I doubt anyone would be afraid of it. At the beginning of the party, skeletons prance around the graveyard with a CLACKA-CLACK! Then ghosts sway to the beat of the drums. OOOOA-OOO! Witches, ghouls, and goblins galore join in until the graveyard party can be heard all over town.

Before long, the children of the town (many of them dressed in their Halloween costumes) and their families make their way to the graveyard, too. The playful illustrations show a girl dancing hand-in-hand with a skeleton, a ghost swinging in a tree, and a woman happily pulling a little boy and a goblin in a toy wagon. Even the town's mayor is boogying to the beat. It is definitely a night that the whole town will remember for a long time!

The second book I want to mention is Boogie Knights, written by Lisa Wheeler and illustrated by Mark Siegel. I didn't find it in the holiday section of the library (where I found Rattlebone Rock), but I still think it's a great book for Halloween. It's the story of seven knights, standing guard in the upstairs of an old castle, who one by one venture downstairs and away from their post to join a midnight monster ball. The names of the knights are all puns, like Sir Cumference and Sir Vivor, which adds a nice layer of humor. And there are gremlins, ghostlings, vampires, and a ton of other characters appropriate for Halloween.

Monsters mashing! Bogeys bashing!

Jesters jive and jump. 

Go-go gobblins--bouncin', bobbin'--

teach that knight to... Bump!

Mark Siegel uses a lot of grays and browns in the illustrations, giving an illusion of spookiness. But it really is just an illusion because, like Rattlebone Rock, this book is not very scary. The vampires look a little goofy, a hunchback is swinging from a chandelier on one of the pages, and many of the monsters are smiling and laughing as they dance.

I have to admit I had a little trouble catching the rhythm of the text sometimes, because it changes a few times throughout the book, and there is a lot going on in both the text and the illustrations. However, once you get used to it all, the book is really a lot of fun.

I think Lisa Wheeler and Mark Siegel also had a ton of fun making the book, which is evident in the following video from YouTube. The video also provides more insight into the book's subtle humor and into a couple of characters that were added into the story through the illustrations alone. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

If you are in the mood for some more rhythm or rhyme, head on over to Fomagrams, where Poetry Friday is being hosted today. It's a great day for reading and writing poetry, don't you think?

This post is also part of Book Talk Tuesday, which is held each week at the Lemme Library to share reviews of good books for school-age kids.

Nutcracker Twinkle Toes: Short & Sweet

My just-turned four-year-old and my five-year-old have always loved board books by author/illustrator Karen Katz, and so have I. I haven't asked the girls why they like them so much, but one of the reasons I like them is their simplicity. If I had to sum up the style of the books in just three words, I would probably say something along the lines of "short and sweet."

Karen Katz's new touch-and-feel board book, Nutcracker Twinkle Toes, fits this description perfectly--taking the meaning of "sweet" to a whole new level. In less than 100 words of rhyming text, the book leads readers on a Christmas Eve journey to the Land of Sweets, where they meet an assortment of fairies and other characters who all seem to have two things in common: a love of ballet and a love of candy. Luckily they don't have much interest in actually eating the candy, but instead find creative ways to dance with it, admire it, or simply give it away...

The Sugar Plum Fairy loves to twirl and leap.

"This bag of jellybeans is yours to keep."

Although the Sugar Plum Fairy appears in the book, Clara and the Nutcracker are among many other familiar characters who do not. If you're looking for the traditional story of the Nutcracker, this is probably not the book for you. But if you want a unique and very simplified adaptation--with a creative twist--you will find it here. As a side note, this would be a great book to integrate into a creative dance or ballet class for very young children (if you don't mind that it mentions Christmas and none of the other holidays that happen this time of year.)

While we are on the subject of the Nutcracker, my family and I have tickets to see the actual ballet this evening. The Maryland Youth Ballet is doing a full-length production with children in all the lead roles, so I thought it would be perfect for my girls. This will be their first ballet, and it's been quite a few years since I've seen it myself, so I'm getting really excited. We may even have snow for the festive occasion!

Today's Poetry Friday round-up is being held at The Poem Farm. Drop by to find links to lots more posts related to poetry and children's literature.

Poetry Friday: Shake Dem Halloween Bones!

With Halloween quickly approaching, I wanted to highlight at least one picture book related both to Halloween and to dance. But how was I going to get my hands on one of those? Well, thank goodness for Scholastic Book Clubs!

Shake Dem Halloween Bones, written by W. Nikola-Lisa and illustrated by Mike Reed, miraculously showed up in the book club flyer my three-year-old brought home from preschool last month, so I of course snatched up a copy for my blog...I mean, ummm, for my daughter.

The text of the book is incredibly rhythmic. When my three-year-old was a little younger, we used to read Babybug magazine together, and she'd almost always ask me to "sing" the poems to her. I found it difficult, but I would make up my own little rhythms and do the best I could. Well, Shake Dem Halloween Bones is just dying to be sung. I haven't read it to my daughter yet, but I won't be surprised if she asks me to sing it to her again and again.

It's Halloween night, and the city is quiet...for a little while. Then a rockin' DJ with a jack-o-lantern head pulls out a mike and starts singing at the local Halloween ball. Many of the guests are sporting sunglasses and funky sneakers, and there are even some skateboards in the mix. A fun twist is that all the guests appear to be huge fans of traditional fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, and Rumpelstiltskin are all there. And they're all incredible dancers. I wish I could go to the Halloween ball and learn some of their hip-hop!

Now, look at Goldilocks

a-twirling those bears. 

No wonder she busted their rockin-chairs.

Come on, Li'l Goldie,

won't you dance with me

at the hip-hop Halloween ball?

Shake Dem Halloween Bones was published more than a decade ago, but here are four other Halloween books--all written in verse--that were published in the last few months:

Title: On a Windy Night

Author: Nancy Raines Day

Illustrator: George Bates

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers

More info: This spooky book has lots of neat cross-hatchings in its illustrations. Children's author Tina Nichols Coury blogs about it at Tales from the Rushmore Kid. 

Title: Quackenstein Hatches a Family

Author: Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

Illustrator: Brian T. Jones

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers

More info: Virginia S. Grenier, editor of Stories for Children (SFC) Magazine, reviews this clever adoption story on the SFC Blog: Family Matters. As a side note, my three-year-old asks to read this book quite often. She really really likes it.

Title: Hallowilloween: Nefarious Silliness from Calef Brown

Author: Calef Brown

Illustrator: Calef Brown

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

More info: This book has starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and the School Library Journal. Andromeda Jazmon reviews it on her blog a wrung sponge.

Title: The Ghouls Come Haunting One by One

Author: Tom McDermott

Illustrator: Liz McGrath

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

More info: This counting book, set to the rhythm of the children's song The Ants Go Marching One by One, is reviewed at Bookin' Las Vegas. 

This is getting to be a really long post, but before I go I wanted to mention one more book that is appropriate for Halloween. It's called I'm Looking for a Monster, written and illustrated by Timothy Young. Tim has a diverse background, including extensive experience in graphic design, so he created all aspects of this fun pop-up book on his own. As a young boy searches for the perfect monster to play with, readers can lift flaps, turn wheels, and pull tabs to interact with all the different monsters in the book. 

Today Tim visited my three-year-old's preschool, where he read the book and drew some monsters for the kids. He also had volunteers scribble on a big piece of paper, and he magically transformed the scribbles into animals, dinosaurs, and even a jack-o-lantern. So much fun!