Help Solve Some Mysteries In “Aunt Eater’s Mystery Halloween”!
Written: Mar 17 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Four cute stories, great vocabulary words, awesome illustrations.
Cons: The last one might scare kids a little.
The Bottom Line: A snake with a sneeze, a dancing scarecrow and a kitchen monster! Come read four great short stories and see if you can help Aunt Eater solve these Halloween mysteries!
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| Freak369's Full Review: Doug Cushman - Aunt Eater's Mystery Halloween |
As I’ve mentioned in several other Halloween book reviews, over the past few years my friends gave up trying to find spooky things for me. They’ve run the gambit on stuffed animals, decorations, cookie cutters and clothing so now they’ve moved on to books. To them any book that contains the word Halloween, deals with the holiday or even comes close to qualifying as a ‘holiday book’ is good enough for them so occasionally I end up with kids books. I wasn’t sure what the make of this one when I first saw it, personally it looked a little ‘too’ cute for my taste but as they always say, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Now that I’ve had this book for a while I checked out some of the other Aunt Eater titles and found them all amusing but moreover, they are great for younger kids that are just starting out in the wonderful world of reading. The book contains four short stories and beautiful illustrations by Doug Cushman, each of the stories takes the reader on a little journey with Aunt Eater on this bewitching night.
Aunt Eater’s Mystery Halloween
Through the four short stories in the book you are introduced to some of Aunt Eaters neighbors, places in her neighborhood and a whole lot of mystery. Armed with her trusty magnifying glass and cape she sets out to solve some Halloween mysteries. None of the stories are too terribly scary but the last one might but a little fright into the younger kids and it will certainly have them looking at each and every scarecrow with a raised eye wondering if maybe, just maybe, that was the one in the story. The text is large and easy to read and kids will love looking at all of the illustrations in the book, as an adult I really liked that there was a lot of detail in the drawings, to me, that really added a lot of depth to the stories.
Aunt Eater Sees A Monster
Dressed up in her Halloween costume, a sleuth of course, she heads to Mr. and Mrs. Troop’s house for a costume party. Along the way she runs into Wally the cat who tells her that there is a monster in his kitchen and that the monster ate his father! “That’s silly, there are no such things as monsters proclaims Aunt Eater as she sets out for her first mystery of the night. Peeking around the corner she sees a scary shadow and hears some strange moaning noises. Wally warns her that his father went into the kitchen and never came back out but still, Aunt Eater makes her way into the kitchen. She spies a trail of candy wrappers leading behind the table where she finds … Wally’s father moaning and groaning, he ate too much candy and now he has a belly ache! Mystery one solved.
Aunt Eater Sees A Ghost
Trying to make her way to The Troop’s house, Aunt Eater walks past Mr. Chumly’s house and see’s he’s wearing a turnip costume, “I’m dressed as my favorite food”. They decide to walk together to the Troop’s party when Mr. Chumly notices that they are walking past the Ghost Tree. “People say a ghost who has lost its head lives inside”. Since Aunt Eater doesn’t believe in ghosts she laughs off the claim, that is until they hear a voice coming from the tree and a pumpkin comes running out of it! It turns out the little pumpkin was Tilly, the daughter of Mrs. Crunch the panda bear. They got separated and little Tilly was running around looking for her mother. They decide to go home to find better costumes since it’s much too hard to see out of the ones they had on. Mystery two solved.
Aunt Eater Hears Some Music
Once they arrive at the party, Aunt Eater and Mr. Chumly see some of their other friends; Miss Underbelly and her pet snake, being one of the cutest. When the band stopped to take a rest everyone noticed the piano was playing by itself! Slowly everyone started moving away from the piano, no one wanted to go near it. It was just about that time that Miss Underbelly noticed that Karl, the snake, was missing. Everyone began searching and now they had two mysteries; the missing snake and the music coming from the piano. A sneeze is what solved both at the same time; opening the piano they saw Karl slithering along so he wasn’t really missing after all and the piano wasn’t really playing by itself! Mystery three solved
Aunt Eater Dances A Jig
Everyone was having a grand time at the party; they were eating, drinking punch and dancing. A scarecrow tapped Aunt Eater on the shoulder and when the music started playing they started dancing. Not once did the scarecrow speak and Aunt Eater wondered who was inside the costume. Working up a thirst, Aunt Eater made her way to the punch bowl to see Mr. Fragg with his foot up on a stool. He was hurt and was sorry that he wouldn’t be able to dance with Aunt Eater. Things get pretty weird when she says “What are you talking about? We just danced the jig, jitterbug and tango!. Mr. Fragg replied that he’d been sitting there all the while and Aunt Eater started wondering exactly who was in the scarecrow costume. When the party ended she and Mr. Chumly walked home and he asked if she ever found out who her partner was. And there, standing in the field was a smiling scarecrow!
Things To Know
This book is part of the “I Can Read” series that promotes reading, creative stories, adventure and touching tales. Some of the other characters in the series include Minnie & Moon, Little Bear and Arthur, all great picks for early learning. Most of the books in the series are hard cover so you can end up spending a pretty penny on them but they are usually listed at used book sites and stores as well as on eBay. In addition to the famous faces and names there are also a lot of generic titles that deal with animals, dinosaurs, juvenile fiction, holidays and more.
The Bottom Line
If you have a young child that is just starting out with reading you may want to read one story a night, trying to make your way through the whole thing at once might be a little too much for them. The stories are all cute but the last one might be a little too scary for them so you might want to make up a little ending about Aunt Eater finding out who the scarecrow was if they get too freaked out by it. Since these are Halloween stories they are great to read as kids start to get anxious a few days before they don their costumes and get ready to go trick-or-treating, these would also be nice to read if you are having a Halloween party and want something to keep the younger kids entertained. After getting this one I started to check out more of the Aunt Eater books as well as the ones in the “I Can Read” series and found all of them to be entertaining, educational and so sweet you might just come away from them with a cavity or two.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
Other awesome Halloween book picks for kids …
Halloween Fun Activity Book
Little Halloween Activity Book
The Hallo-Wiener
Eyewitness Junior “Amazing Bats”
Halloween Night on Shivermore Street
Rookie Read-About Holidays: Halloween
Spooky America
Days of The Dead
The Halloween Book
Crafts For Halloween
Recommended:
Yes
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