The Thirteen Days of Halloween

I saw this book in a capsule review in LA Kids magazine. I love Halloween and enjoy all the variants (clever and rude) of the 12 Days of Christmas. I thought this to be another clever riff on a Holiday Classic.....and it certainly delivers! It arrived in my mailbox yesterday. I read it to my kids last night, much to their enjoyment and amusement. My son kept giggling at Vulture In A Dead Tree and Five Cooked Worms. My wife enjoyed it as well. She's going to bring it to my son's First Grade story time session as well as read it aloud to the Little Monsters at our Halloween Party.

First and foremost I love the illustrations in this book! They are just so unique. Tim Raglin does a great job of creating the characters in this sing-along. From the ghosts to the goblins, each is individual, even if they look alike. Children will enjoy just looking at the pictures and pointing out all of the characters that have been talked about. Each time I read it, I find something new and surprising in the illustrations. This is a new spin on an old song, The 12 Days of Christmas. Most older children will be familiar with that at least, and will in turn be able to sing along with this one. Younger children, may not know the other song, but have possibly heard it. Either way, they will love the sing-song feel and will be joining in after the first reading. This is a great book to teach numbers from 1-13, counting on, adding 1, and sets. I can see classes creating their own 13 days using other Fall or Halloween objects. What fun! I can also see this book being acted out by classes, either by becoming the characters, or creating a sound for each character as the teacher reads. The ending leaves you hanging, which opens children up to using their imaginations and being creative. This book could be used in many different ways in the classroom, for many teachable moments. I love books that are spin-offs of other books or songs. They are easy for children to relate to, because they can make those connections that good readers make: text to self, text to text, and/or text to world. When children can connect new learning to something else, it makes it much more meaningful for them.

Everyone is familiar with the Twelve Days of Christmas, right? What about the Thirteen Days of Halloween? In this hilarious story, a ghoul tries to win the heart of his beloved. He does so by presenting her with a slew of outrageous and ghoulish gifts, including bats, cooked worms, and hissing cats. My boys demanded to read this book as soon as we received it (back in the summer!). They fell in love with the silly and lyrical language. They loved counting down the days and would both call out each gift as we went along. They enjoyed screaming the first gift "A VULTURE IN A DEAD TREE!!!" The elaborate illustrations, done by Tim Raglin, were a perfect complement to the engaging text. As we read along with the text, my boys made a game of finding each of the "gifts" in the illustrations. We all had a great time guessing what the final gift was; the final consensus was "an ugly zombie!" What can I say, they're my boys! We all have an obsession with zombies! This book will definitely be making a reappearance as we get closer to Halloween and a treasured book for years to come! This is a must read for any ghoul this Halloween season!

The 13 Days of Halloween is a delightful and fun way to celebrate this wonderful holiday that allows a child's imagination to soar with unclipped wings! When I first saw the cover of this book, my fingers instantly wanted to reach out and grab it. The illustrations are fantastic, bright, vivid and tons of fun! Whether you sing the words along to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas, or just sit back and read, you and your child are in for a hauntingly fun treat! Including a vulture in a dead tree, two hissing cats, three fat toads, four giggling ghosts and five cooked worms (and this is, of course, just the beginning), your child will ask for repeat performances of this additively laugh-out-loud story. The 13 Days of Halloween is the perfect book to help celebrate Halloween and even make it a not-so-spooky time of the year for those not quite sure what to make of the entire thing. My three-year-old son and I love this book and have read it repeatedly - with many more readings on the horizon, which is just fine with me!

I highly recommend this book. I am an English as a Second Language teacher, and I used this book in my classroom in the days leading up to Halloween. It was a hit with the kids! We read a page a day and the kids chimed in as I read all of the previous days' verses. They learned some interesting new vocabulary (creeping, wizards, screeching) and had fun doing it. The pictures are as imaginative as the rhymes and also helped draw my students into the story. I wish I purchased the hardback version because my copy has become dogeared.