I’ll be honest, I’m not particularly thrilled with most Halloween books out there. They generally fall to two extremes: the much too-scary ghoulish books or the cutesy little stories that are explicitly twaddle. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing really in the spiritual realm to bank this holiday on… with the exception of All Saint’s Day on November 1st—for which there are of course many good saint books. But Halloween as it’s popularly known today? Pretty barren for the literature world. There are of course, a couple gems, generally related to pumpkins in general: Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor is probably my only “must have” for this specific holiday. But Too Many Pumpkins is another fun one worth picking up. And if you are able to find a good copy of Mousekin’s Golden House for under $20 you’d be lucky, but chances are slim. There are probably others, but I’ve stopped searching for great Halloween specific books. I turn to other sources to get into the spirit of things.
Ed Emberley is single-handedly responsible for encouraging my children to become little artists. Whenever I used to try and get them to draw a scene from a story or just be creative, they would whine that “they didn’t know how.” So I first bought Ed Emberley’s: Make a World to see if they would be motivated to try. Would they ever! Suddenly, the whole world was opened up to them! They just needed to realize how easy it was to break down basic figures into manageable parts to draw, and Emberley was the first to show them how. Lately the boys have been drawing from two of his very Halloween oriented titles: Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Weirdos and Ed Emberley’s Big Orange Drawing Book (unfortunately out of print right now) . Both books are excellent for inspiring fun, not-too-scary-but-just-scary-enough drawings. We currently have expanded our How-To-Draw ______ books but still have a good half dozen of Emberley’s titles.
Another alternative to traditional Halloween stories are to explore picture books that really embody mystery and suspense… not necessarily fear. Chris Van Allsburg comes to mind with books like The Stranger or the fun and macabre (a great combo) alphabet book The Z Was Zapped.
Finally, this a great time to avoid the commercial Halloween fare altogether and bust out the old, creepy fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, or the modern but delicious Heckedy Peg. Search through many picture books to find one that gives a fair rendition of classic fairy tales or just save yourself the pain and invest in a good, quality anthology of originals. Enter Andrew Lang’s Colored Fairy Book Collection if you want to do the piecemeal approach like I do. Otherwise there are complete anthologies like Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories.
Please note that not all fairy tales were written for children and some can be quite gruesome and morbid. Use your best discretion in previewing these tales… but know that this is what they looked like before Disney came to popularize and trivialize them.
by Brian Wildsmith (one of my very favorite illustrators). It’s hard to find a book that doesn’t talk down to children about the Crucifixion (if it gets presented at all), but this one manages a perfect, family-friendly balance. And the gold leaf illustrations are superb. I bought this book two years ago and somehow it’s gone out of print since then, but you really ought to get a copy anyhow, used or otherwise. In the meantime, I really hope more authors jump on the bandwagon and start creating some lovely Easter tales…
St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning by Eve Bunting. Very sweet story with excellent Jan Brett illustrations about a young boy who is too big for his britches. 
Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland by the incomparable Tomie dePaola. Everyone should have the basic story of Patrick in mind on this holiday that quickly gets overtaken with beer and leprechauns… this is a good a story as any! Also, I haven’t personally read these, but here are some other books on the saint himself that look like they might be real gems too: 
St. Patrick’s Day by Gail Gibbons. Gibbons does a great job at producing basic, light non-fiction children’s books on a ton of topics. This book is a good overview of the holiday and current customs. My only beef with it is that it says the shamrock is a “symbol of St. Patrick”… well, uh, actually it’s not. He made this symbol famous for representing the Holy Trinity… but I try not to be too pedantic with kid’s books. Key word “try.”
Mary McLean and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade by Steven Kroll. Wishes really can come true for this little girl!
Saint Patrick and the Peddler by Margaret Hodges is out of print but your library may have it. This is a fantastic story that tells like a verbal story… try to read it with an accent! It may be scary for young readers as the ghost of St. Patrick is shown… the story actually has nothing to do with his feast day but all things Ireland relate to him somehow it seems!
The Blackbird’s Nest: Saint Kevin of Ireland by Jenny Schroedel. This is a good time of year to go through other Irish saints too… and this particular story is particularly Lenten so I consider it a must-read!
Ciaran: the Tale of a Saint of Ireland by Gary Schmidt. St. Ciaran was one of Ireland’s first saints… he was encouraged by St. Patrick. This is a lovely, gentle book with excellent illustrations and evocative prose: “But still Ciaran’s eyes looked to the east, and his heart longed for the name of God…”
Saint Brigid: Abbess of Kildaire by Jane Meyer. Geared toward slightly older children, this story of St. Brigid has stunning illuminations that make the whole thing come alive from the Emerald Isle… (see also 
Acrosss a Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown. This is an excellent story about the Irish monk St. Columba…
Brendan and the Voyage Before Columbus by Michael McGrew. Get your history straight on the “discovery” of the New World and add some faith in there too!
which offers a great and historically accurate perspective on the Revolution from the other side of the Atlantic. Then there’s 
which isn’t as fascinating as Farmer George but it does offer an important look at an important man whose ideas still shape our world.
and the like. This topic is ripe with good books.
Anatole and the Toyshop by Eve Titus. I’m always willing to give a plug to the Anatole books; we love him around here. And in this particular story, Anatole gets to shine as the hero who saves his family from a tyrranical shop owner. Family is the ends; courage is the means.
Pop’s Bridge by C.F. Payne gets double points for being based on history. (I love that.) In this book a boy admires his hardworking dad as he helps to build the Golden Gate Bridge. The sacrifices of men are noted and laborers of all kinds are celebrated in the end. Kids today don’t often get to see their fathers doing meaningful work. Back in the pioneer days, children worked alongside fathers out in the fields or in the stables. Since the industrial revolution, the actual sight of men at work is removed from most kids. So when dad gets home, often all they see is him lazing about on the couch or glued in front of a T.V. or somesuch. Not exactly images that inspire virtues of strength, commitment, sacrifice and integrity in young people. (Now this is a topic for another time, another blog… but while I have you reading here, if you’d like to explore this idea further see the excellent, short book 
Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley was mentioned before in a thrifting thread. It’s been a good addition to our home library. Piccolo becomes a reluctant adoptive father to two spritely little kittens. After spending a lot of time trying to dodge them; their disappearance causes him concern and he finally embraces his role as papa and teacher. I suspect I’ll be mentioning this one last time in a future post when I write about my favorite books to use as curriculum units. (The glories of Venice are in top form here.)
If: A Father’s Advice to his Son. Now I’m breaking all the rules on this one. Not only is this a “sentiment book” of sorts, and it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with fathers specifically, it’s a book I’ve not even SEEN in real life yet! I stumbled on it one day on Amazon.com. This is the famous poem by Rudyard Kipling (whose pedigree speaks for itself) illustrated with photographs by Charles R. Smith Jr. I am a tremendous fan of this poem. It will be one of the longer poems my boys are forced to memorize and I hope its message sticks with them. If you’re not familiar with “If”, I’ll post it here for your good pleasure. Drink it up, then force the koolaid on your kids too. As it is, I just found out that it’s in our library system so I’ve just put a hold on it for further perusal.