Reviews of the Week 10/31

Happy Halloween! Hope your holiday is going well. I'm keeping up with my totally unintentional "ghost" theme in my reviews this month with my final October review including the new middle-grade novel, Ghost by Jason Reynolds. Yeah, you're right, it's not actually that spooky or ghost-related at all...but hey, the title worked for my needs. Also, apparently I was in a "yellow cover" sort of mood:

  

22 Awesome Children's Book Character Costumes

You've probably already figured out what costume you'll wear for Halloween this year, but I still want to highlight some of the most awesome literary costumes I've seen. Heck, wear these anytime! Dr. Seuss Day, World Book Day, book reports...any book-themed event, really.

1. The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George (Haute Apple Pie)

Reviews of the Week 10/24

Sometimes I feel like a bit of an idiot. Like when I ask for comments on a blog post as a way to enter a certain giveaway and then forget that I had turned off the comments option. And then no one told me until like a week later. Ha! Well, live and learn, right? Perhaps I was distracted by the awesome reads this week. I finally have a five-star again! And technically, one is written for adults, but it's got such a great story (that is also cleaner than most YAs) that I'm sharing it here. Plus, it carries the ghost theme that I've had the past few weeks (i.e. Raina's Telgemeier's newest and Jonathan Stroud's newest). Enjoy!

  

15 Extension Activities for Mother Bruce

Welcome back to my new series of posts highlighting some of my very favorite, favorite books and the supplementary games, songs, and activities you could use with them. This could be useful for library programs, home schooling, or (of course) to just have fun with your kids! The first book I did was What This Story Needs is a Pig in a Wig, and now I'll share ideas for...

I adore Ryan T. Higgins' book, Mother Bruce. You can see my original review back here. Basically, I love it because of the humor. So. Funny. But really, it's also the illustrations, the great story, and the ever lovable grumpy bear named Bruce. Also of note, the sequel, Hotel Bruce just came out this week! And I'm doing a giveaway for the book, so head on over to this post if you want a chance to win. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here are some activities that will appeal to the books target audience, kids aged 3 - 7 or there's about.

1.  Hibernation craft—What does "hibernate" mean? Bruce would much prefer to sleep. Do some research as to why, and try out this adorable hibernation craft (from Courtney Ward's Lesson Plans).