Welcome to Perfect Picture Book Friday, Everyone!

As some of you may have noticed, Halloween is coming! 🎃🧙🏿‍♀️👻

So what better time for a story about a haunted house?

This one is so cute scary! 😊

Title: Hardly Haunted

Written & Illustrated By: Jessie Sima

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, fiction, July 2021

Suitable For Ages: 4-8

Themes/Topics: being yourself, self-acceptance, holidays (Halloween)

Opening: “There was a house on a hill,
and that house was worried.”

Brief Synopsis:House has a problem. The evidence seems to suggest that she might be HAUNTED! How will she ever find a family who wants to make her a haunted home?

Links To Resources: Haunted House Activities for Kids; Haunted Cookie Houses and Black Cat Cookies (and honestly I think you could easily do a haunted house cookie activity using chocolate graham crackers and icing if you don’t want to do all the gingerbread template baking!)

Why I Like This Book: Some kids like scary books. Mine were not in that category! 😊 So this is the kind of perfect Halloween book that I love. It hints at spookiness, and has a little suspense in the story, without being at all scary. After all, no one wants nightmares! The story is told from the point of view of the house, but there’s a delightful little black cat who appears on every page, adding to the story with her reactions. And while the house is concerned about her potential hauntedness, the art is so appealing that it makes her much more endearing than scary. Although this is a story appropriate for the Halloween season with its nod toward spookiness, it is also a story about being who you are and accepting yourself – always something kids can benefit from. Young readers will delight in this story and fall in love with the friendly little house…even if she is haunted 😊

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do 😊

For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

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Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! 😊