Happy October! I hope you’re enjoying the crisp chill in the morning air; the new hues of the leaves and grasses as they golden and rust; and the spice-warm scents of your favorite fall beverage. Besides welcoming in the seasonal shift from summer to autumn, October is well-known for another important phenomenon: it’s spooky season, y’all!!!
That means jack-o-lanterns, fog, skeletons, candle-light, hayrides, shadows, graveyards, cobwebs, the murmuring wind, candy, apples, candy apples, the color orange, ectoplasm, costumes and cozying up around a campfire or flashlight to share a scary folktale or two. To help you get into that Hall🎃ween-is-coming state of mind, I’ve got a frightfully delightful selection of stories that feature some of my favorite cultural creatures: vampires and witches and ghosts, oh my! 🧛🔮👻
While it’s always fun to lean into the spirit of the current season, I believe these stories concerning vampires, witches and ghosts are essential and applicable beyond October 31, and many of the following terrific titles can be found in our collection year-round. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in need of a bedtime haunting this month in particular, these would be great options when other Halloween-themed titles are all checked out.
VAMPIRES
If I absolutely had to choose my favorite occult figure, it would have to be the vampire. The sumptuous cloaks! The existential drama! The classic blood-red lip! Vampires are both cool and a little bit ridiculous, terrifying or silly, depending on the adaptation. There’s Nosferatu and Sesame Street’s The Count, Edward Cullen and young baby Dracula of “Vampenguin” and “I Love My Fangs!,” two adorable picture books that reimagine Dracula when he wasn’t so much “I want to suck your blood,” but tiny tot getting lost at the zoo or losing his first tooth!
As the wordplay of its title might suggest, “Vampenguin” concerns the Dracula family on a busy Saturday morning visit to the Penguin House. The Dracula family always visits the Penguin House first on their zoo trips, but this time baby Dracula gets a little antsy in his stroller, squirming out to make friends through the glass with one of the penguins.
Then, thanks to an absent-minded caretaker leaving the door to the penguin habitat open, baby Dracula and his new penguin friend end up delightfully switching places, embodying the truism that you can’t know another person (or penguin or vampire) unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes—or in this case, ridden in another’s stroller or eaten another’s fishy breakfast! The matching color schemes of baby Drac and his penguin-imposter add a whimsical touch to the mix-up, and there are a couple of silly moments of dramatic irony when various zoo critters recognize and draw attention to the escaped penguin strapped in the stroller while the family remains unaware.
In “I Love My Fangs!,” a school-age Dracula shares that he loves his fangs for many reasons, probably most importantly because they are a “family trait” that connects him to all his vampiric ancestors. So, when he suddenly loses a fang during lunch at school, he is quite distraught and vows never to go outside again.
Later that night, while Dracula forlornly cuddles his detached fang, a surprise midnight visitor (aka the tooth fairy) has the audacity to try to steal it, but Dracula isn’t ready to let go. Wrestling with the tooth fairy to get his fang back, young Dracula creates a bit of a ruckus and wakes up his very concerned and a little bit grouchy vampire parents. But they have some soothing news: now that his baby fang is gone, there’s room for his bigger, stronger adult one to grow in! While this title has a hilarious premise, it’s also about a relatable rite of passage that is a little weird and grotesque if you think about it. Parts of our bodies just fall out, sometimes bloodily and violently, and we grow new ones in their place?? This would be a great title to help a young reader understand and process the experience of losing their first tooth — or fang.
WITCHES
With their bubbling cauldrons, cackling incantations, herbalist rituals, magical animal sidekicks, a gnarly ride and charming cottage-core style, witches truly do have it all and would be a perfect library mascot come to think of it: much of their time is spent reading and writing spells, after all. But even the most perfect of witches have their struggles, as we find out in Flavia Z. Drago’s enchanting “Leila, the Perfect Witch.”
Leila, as you might have guessed, is the perfect witch: though she is the youngest in her coven, she’s also “the fastest flier, the most cunning conjurer, the sneakiest shape-shifter and the craftiest carver” and has a wall of trophies to prove it! But there’s one competition Leila hasn’t won yet that haunts her dreams: the magnificent witchy cake-off. Unfortunately, baking proves to be a pretty difficult task that Leila does not naturally excel in.
Feeling the frustration of failure and not wanting to let down her family, Leila throws herself into the “dark arts of patisserie,” isolating herself from her friends and family in the process. And though Leila bakes as hard as she can, she just can’t get the hang of it and starts to despair that despite her previous accomplishments, maybe deep down she’s a crummy witch. But Leila’s concerned sisters and Baba are waiting in the wings, ready to rescue Leila from her frustration and show her that perfection is overrated, especially when you have such a sweet, supportive community around you.
Another un-perfect witch with an important lesson to learn is the rough and tough Cyclops Witch, who isn’t scared of any terrifying creature, not the ice troll, the leprechaun, the pumpkinhead, the winged monkeys, the hobgoblin, the vampire, the Mothman, nor the sea beast.
But there is one unfamiliar being that gives her the heebie-jeebies: a human child. When an entire troop of kids visits her home unexpectedly one night, she is SO terrified she dashes out the back window, but the children soon follow in pursuit. So, the witch, courageous in all instances except this one, decides she will scare the children (as they have scared her) by leading them to all of the “creepy beasties” she’s encountered and not wasted a single “shiver, quiver or twitch” over herself. What follows is a rollicking, uplifting adventure about first impressions, stereotypical assumptions, fear, division and what it means to be in community with the monsters (or children) most different from yourself.
GHOSTS
In my previously haunted experience, ghosts are helpful, albeit mischievous creatures that can suddenly demand your attention and reverence. Don’t go into that darkened field, they say, I’m warning you for your own good! But it also makes sense to me that some ghosts are exceedingly shy and would much prefer to observe from their moonlit corner of eternity. That’s the case for Gustavo of Flavia Z. Drago’s “Gustavo, the Shy Ghost,” a poignant tale about putting yourself out there even when talking to another being does ghastly things to your nerves. (Sidebar: Drago’s work is an absolute treat! I can’t wait for future titles featuring other monsters from Leila and Gustavo’s haunted world.) As a ghost, Gustavo is pretty good at keeping himself entertained: he walks through walls; levitates various household objects; beautifully, eerily glows; and even plays the violin. But what Gustavo wants more than anything else (besides being confident enough to order his own eye-scream) is to make a friend. He tries in a variety of creative ways . . .
“but even when right in front of [the other monsters] they just couldn’t see him.” Since talking directly to the other monsters is too hard for Gustavo, he comes up with an inventive plan: he’ll handwrite (sheet-write?) them all letters inviting them to a violin performance at the cemetery. I won’t spoil the ending here, (in case you’re worried, things work out!) except to say that it’s amazing to witness Gustavo as he learns how to ask for help and support within his own boundaries, an important (after)life skill for any young creature.
Another ghost who needs help and support is the poor, unfortunate Little Ghost who lost her boo! Hoping to scare a camper in the woods one dark fall night, Little Ghost opens her glowing mouth to shout “Boo!” — but to her horror, nothing comes out. Little Ghost searches the forest far and wide for her “boo,” but hears a “whoo, whoo, whoo” instead? Who could it be but her friend Owl, who generously offers up “whoo, whoo” to replace Little Ghost’s lost “boo.”
After searching all night and into the day, Little Ghost encounters a couple of other of her animal friends, who each offer up their sounds to replace her “boo.” But none of those sounds are quite spooky or scary enough, so Little Ghost turns her attention to the last source she can think of: the reader! All of the animal sounds and rhyming text make this a lovely story to read aloud and to get in the Halloween spirit by practicing your “boo.”
