Looking ahead to the end of the half term holidays, when no doubt a lot of your children will be celebrating Halloween in some spooky way, I just wanted to remind you about the supportive role that the school library can play in so many of the celebratory events throughout the year. For Halloween, we have some fabulous spooky books to get your children in the mood and to encourage them to keep reading during their break from school.
To put it all in context, modern day celebrations are based on Halloween traditions drawn from ancient religious and pagan festivals celebrated over the end of autumn. The word Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe’en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before ‘All Hallows’ Day’. Halloween was also sometimes called ‘All Saints’ Eve’, and was a time for Christians to remember the dead as the nights grew longer and winter arrived.
Halloween may also have roots in the Gaelic festival Samhain, a day of celebration to mark the end of harvest, when bonfires were lit, tricks were played and people dressed up in costumes. The Irish immigrants took their Halloween traditions with them when they settled in the United States, swapped turnip lanterns for pumpkins and developed the now hugely popular tradition of trick-or-treating.
The long, dark nights of October are also believed to be a time when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and when humans can communicate with those beyond the grave – so it is the perfect time to read a scary book under the covers, by torchlight!
As always we have a great selection of spooky books in the school library for the children to borrow. They just need to look for the shelf edge symbols below which are placed in front of selected titles (ghosts, wizards, witches, magic) or ask me for help.
In addition, here are some fun activities to download and complete that are linked to some great Halloween books; Haunting of Aveline Jones (9-12yrs) and Amelie Fang & the Half Moon Holiday (6-9 yrs) and I am a Bat (Pre-Prep).
Mrs Emmett, Librarian
