Here’s a very original fun idea for Halloween! Kids can open to any one of the book’s five two-page spreads, and a silhouette nighttime scene pops up against an evocatively tinted night sky background. A miniature flashlight attached to the book’s cover can be turned on in a darkened room, its glow moved around to create shadows and give spooky animation to each scene. A typical silhouette depicts a gnarled tree, where an owl takes wing as it prepares to pounce on a mouse in the shrubbery below. The scene’s brief caption announces: “After dark a little mouse flees/ As an owl swoops down through the trees!” Each of the five silhouetted scene suggests the start of an eerie Halloween story, but it’s up to the kids who open this book to imagine and tell original stories for themselves....

Here’s a terrific set of spooky pop-up pictures to capture the Halloween spirit. Five sets of black cut-out silhouettes pop up from two-page spreads to show against colored backgrounds that suggest autumn skies at sunset and at night. Enclosed with the book is a small flashlight, which kids can turn on in a darkened room. When they flash the beam against the silhouettes, they create magically eerie shadow effects. The shadows of a graveyard, flying bats at the window, a fierce shark at a shipwreck scene, and a spooky castle scene will all seem to move and flicker when the flashlight beam is cast on them. It’s a wonderfully creepy set of pop-ups that come to life in a book of pure fun....