Kate and I have been reading some books about Fall and I wanted to share some with you. I try to keep a small basket filled with seasonal books in her playroom, so I can change up the titles we read every few weeks.

First, she loves Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson with illustrations by Tiphanie Beeke (Greenwillow Books, 2006.) Fletcher the...

jamie

Cat Nights by Jane Manning (Greenwillow Books, 2008) is a perfect book to read during Halloween week. The story is about a young witch named Felicity (who is turning 263!) who is really excited about her birthday this year. This is the year that she will be able to grow warts, get those really curly shoes, and most importantly turn herself into a CAT!

Felicity LOVES being a kitty. In fact, she may be willing to permanently change into one. Her witch relatives (three cousins who are...

jamie

One of the newest Halloween books out there has to be Mary Engelbreits's Queen of Halloween. (HarperCollins, 2008.) This book is perfect for young children who may be feeling anxious about the upcoming holiday of Halloween. (I know my 3 1/2 year old loves Halloween, but she is beginning to ask if ghosts and witches are real, so a bit of fear seems to be creeping into the holiday for her.)

Decked out in their finest costumes, Ann Estelle and her friend, Michael, go trick-or-treating...

jamie

Lisa Campbell Ernst sets Goldilocks Returns fifty years after Goldilocks first met the three bears. Published in the year 2000, this twist on the traditional tale makes for exciting reading.

The middle aged Goldi now owns a lock shop that helps other people protect their homes from snoops like her. As she ages, she finds it unbearable to live with the guilt of breaking and entering, so she goes back to the bear’s cottage to fix what she broke all those years ago. Ernst’s humor is...

jamie

Susan Lowell wrote Dusty Locks and the Three Bears in 2001. This version of the tale is set in the west with grizzly bears and a desperado named Dusty Locks (named after her habit of not bathing regularly.) Susan’s fresh retelling and witty comments such as her description of the great big grizzly being “…nine feet tall and cross as two sticks” (pg. 1).

Lowell’s bears love beans, not porridge, but follow the traditional path in the woods while Dusty is rummaging around their house,...

jamie