Halloween is my favorite time of year. I love choosing a costume for my daughter (now helping her choose a costume) and dressing her up for fall festivals and Halloween trick or treating. We don’t do spooky, but love the fantasy of being anything we want on Halloween! Such fun and if you have ever seen a kids’ costume contest, you know how exciting it can be. All of the different costumes, from lizards to Dracula, from princesses to fairies, are all there on Halloween night!
This Halloween story called “Halloween Hats” is not just about the costumes, but focuses, of course, on the variety of hat options! Open the book and see children in an attic surrounded by hats: Fancy hats, witch hats, feathered hats, even a pilot’s hat! The reader sees children getting ready to go out trick or treating. One is dressed like a witch, one like a pilot, and the baby is a bumblebee. One little boy I am not so sure about as he looks like a swimmer maybe with an inner tube around his waist and swim cap on his head. Mom waves bye as the older kids head out; they look around the ages of 6, 8, and 9.
The children walk down the street where they see many types of hats worn by other children! From typical to not typical! Ordinary to extraordinary! It seems every child in the story has a different type of hat. Tall, short, flat, round, big, flouncy, and more! The kids all line up to head into a house where they play a party game of “Switch the Hat.” Hats go flying through the air until each child has a different hat on his head. Now no hats match their Halloween costumes! A princess has a peacock hat on, a cowboy has a wizard hat on, a dragon has a maiden’s hat on, a ladybug has a fireman’s hat on, and many more switcharoos! How fun!
Some sample text of “Halloween Hats” is: “Big straw hats with ribbons flying, smashed-on hats for secret spying.”
Children will love finding each and every hat in the pictures, even some not on the children’s heads! This is a fun rhyming story for smaller children, but older children will love the flow and theme of the book. Nothing awfully scary about it…there is a puffed-up kitty, some black bats flying around, a non-threatening skeleton, and a wind-up spider, but none are going to frighten anyone! This is a happy fun-filled Halloween story where everyone has smiles on their faces except for one baby who is overly tired. The illustrations show a fall scene with Halloween decorations inside and outside of the house. Many, many different costumes are worn by the children.
Bright colors and large detailed pictures make this a great book for kids. Twenty-six pages of one to four lines of text on each page, but a couple of pages have no text. The illustrations are mainly full pages, but some have smaller pictures of individual children in their costumes. The text is in black except for two lines; those are in yellow and white. An easy reader story for ages two and up. A wonderful book that will give you and your child ideas on what they want to be for Halloween! My daughter loved this little book and is trying to decide on just what she will be next Halloween. Her mind changes every time she picks this book up!
More by this contributor:
‘Annie Was Warned’: Scary Children’s Halloween Birthday Book