Spooky season is in full steam and we want to encourage you to use these Diverse Books and Crafts for Halloween in your home or classroom. We hope you can find the perfect activities to fit your curriculum needs or just for fun on our list of resources below. Share your creations and tag KidLitTV on social media using #fanartfriday.
• Diverse Books and Crafts for Halloween •
BOO STEW
About the Book
Curly Locks is a good-hearted girl, but she’s an awful cook. All the townspeople of Toadsuck Swamp know to steer clear of her peculiar dishes–like batwing brownies and toad eye toffees. So it’s quite a mystery when one of her dishes goes missing from her windowsill.
Next morning, chaos breaks out in town and word spreads how the Scares of Toadsuck Swamp are running wild and terrorizing the town at mealtime. They shriek Gitchey Boo, Gitchey Bon! Gitchey Goo, Gitchey Gone! and send folk running for their lives! But Curly Locks isn’t frightened, and she has an inkling her unsavory cooking can help corral those Scares for good.
Exercising tremendous narrative skill, internationally known storyteller Donna L. Washington breathes a spirited new life into an old classic. Her clever, can-do protagonist and joyful language pair brilliantly with Jeffrey Ebbeler’s fantasy-like illustrations. This enchanting read is a treat for any time of the year!
Pair this book with the resources below from Peachtree Publishing.
BOO STEW Activity Kit
This activity kit offers mazes, word searches, making recipes, creating a menu and adding prices, as well as worksheets to work on cloze sentences with fill in the blanks words.
BOO STEW Cookbook
This downloadable PDF has a list of fun STEM connections with BOO STEW. Try your hand at compost tea, frog egg lemonade, snail slime, stuffed cockroaches, and more!
NINA SONI, HALLOWEEN QUEEN
About the Book
Nina Soni is a lovable, distractible Indian American girl with big plans and cast of family and friends to help her make her realize her dreams–or resolve the chaos that often results.
Halloween brings out Nina Soni’s competitive spirit. Her friend Jay has a great costume planned, so–of course–Nina has to come up with an even better idea. A bunch of old boxes in the basement inspires her to create an impressively scary haunted house, for which she can charge admission. So what could possibly go wrong for the Halloween Queen?
Middle grade readers are sure to relate to author Nina Soni and her entertaining efforts to manage her life with lists, definitions, and real-life math problems. Perfect for STEAM enthusiasts.
Pair this book with the resources below from Peachtree Publishing.
NINA SONI, HALLOWEEN QUEEN Activity Kit
Build your own haunted house with Nina Soni, Halloween Queen. Download this PDF for instructions below to help you create a place to scare people, so you, too, can be the Halloween Queen!
GUSTAVO THE SHY GHOST
About the Book
This winning debut picture book from Mexican artist Flavia Z. Drago about finding the courage to make friends is perfect for the spooky season — or anytime.
Gustavo is good at doing all sorts of ghostly things: walking through walls, making objects fly, and glowing in the dark. And he loves almost nothing more than playing beautiful music on his violin. But Gustavo is shy, and some things are harder for him to do, like getting in a line to buy eye scream or making friends with other monsters. Whenever he tries getting close to them, he realizes they just can’t see him.
Now that the Day of the Dead is fast approaching, what can he do to make them notice him and to share with them something he loves? With fancifully detailed artwork and visual humor, debut picture-book creator Flavia Z.Drago’s vivid illustrations tella sweet and gently offbeat story of loneliness, bravery, and friendship that is sure to be a treat for little ghouls and goblins everywhere.
Pair this book with the resources below from Candlewick Press.
GUSTAVO THE SHY GHOST Activity Kit
This downloadable PDF has a list of fun activities and language arts extensions for GUSTAVO THE SHY GHOST. Kids can practice spotting the difference in pictures, drawing monsters, solving mazes, as well as self connection writing activity.
GUSTAVO THE SHY GHOST Craft Tutorial
Join Miss Suzanne for this book themed craft tutorial and make your own ghost!
FRANKENSLIME
About the Book
A young slime scientist is surprised when her latest creation comes to life in Frankenslime, a funny and clever picture book twist on Frankenstein.
Victoria Franken is a slime scientist. Her experiments lead to amazing slimes. Until, one dark and stormy night, her latest experiment goes awry and her newest creation COMES TO LIFE!
Joy Keller’s clever text and Ashley Belote’s humor-filled art combine to create a fun picture book twist on horror movies like Frankenstein and The Blob, that also explores the scientific method and the importance of recording observations and results. The author has also included a couple of Victoria’s best slime recipes, although you’ll notice the secret formula that brought her slime to life is missing.
Pair this book with the resources below from MacMillan Kids Press.
FRANKENSLIME Activity Kit
Download this PDF for fun activities for all ages after reading the FRANKENSLIME book. Activities include mazes, coloring pages, search and find activities, and fun STEM activities such as making your very own intergalactic space slime.
Need more book recommendations?
Check out KidLit Arts and Crafts for the Fall Season
and KidLit Art & Crafts for Halloween! 
Bethany Edwards is an elementary educator as well as a reading and literacy specialist. On Biracial Bookworms, she focuses on multiracial and multicultural resources for teaching literacy skills using reading, travel, and learning multiple languages. Additionally, she offers online and self-paced courses for parents and caregivers on Biracial Bookworms Academy.
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