Suck It Up and Survive), a memoir about her experience working as a medical doctor in a women’s correctional facility. She has also published a children’s book. Her next book, My Big Fat Greek Wedding Cookbook, is due out in January. For more information, visit alixbewley.com and on Facebook. This week we’re revisiting a fun, family-friendly Halloween story, adapted for young readers by the wonderful Ann Kjellberg! All of our Halloween favorites will be represented in this one, from the classics to the newer classics, all lovingly reinterpreted for a younger audience, with many illustrations and a few songs as well. It’s Halloween. It’s your favorite night of the year. You’re all dressed up, ready to get into the holiday spirit, but your parents are too busy to take you trick or treating. You have to go by yourself! But what will you do? This Halloween you decide to be your own superhero, like in the cartoon show! Now you have some choices. Will you be the good witch or the bad witch? Will you be the friendly fire department, where you put out fires on the ground and in trees with puffs of clouds, or will you be the evil fire department that sets fire to the world? Well, you figure out which you want to be, and you put on your costume. But now what? You’re ready for trick-or-treating, but how will you get home? You’ll need some help. Your friends are coming too! So everyone is dressed up and ready to go. Now what? The family car has been taken out of commission by trick-or-treaters who all wanted a ride to the party. What should you do? So, you decide to take the bus! Everyone is super excited, and then you’re ready to go. You can’t wait to get to your stop. Except you’re at a dead end. Not only are there no buses, but you look around and no one is there! So… How will you get to the party? Well, you know where you are, and you know which way to go. It’s in the dark. Your eyes adjust. Now you have to get to the end of the road and find the party. But first you have to get through this neighborhood. Will you be safe? Will you go through the haunted house? If so, you need to carry a light to make sure you don’t run into the killer, and a candy bar just in case the killer decides to come after you. So how will you get through? Well… A friend has a bright idea… She doesn’t know how they’re going to get through the neighborhood, but that’s not important now. What’s important is that you kids all get to the party safely. So she brings out her phone and reads to you from the book The Monster at the End of This Book. You’ve never heard of the book before, but you’re all ready to learn and have some fun. You don’t want anything bad to happen to the monster, so you should turn around, right? The house is in that direction. So the monster and his friends run through a tunnel and head through a forest, where the monster gets lost. You turn to a different chapter. It’s about going back to your house. As you read, you look around. Yes, you’re at your house. Somehow the monsters did it. They made it home from the party and got back to your house. So your friend has an idea. The next day at school you all agree that the party last night was really fun. You think about all of the different games you played. What were some of your favorite games? Here are a few to think about: “What if” games. Make a story up with a “what if” situation. You can make up a story to go along with your costume. For example, what if there was a ghost who never had friends because everyone forgot about them when they were still alive? He was sad. One day he woke up, and he found a place where he felt like he belonged. This “What If” is a character with a story and a character you can identify with. “Let’s pretend” games. All of your friends can play these, too! “Let’s pretend” games are really fun because it allows you to imagine that you’re somebody different. For example, maybe you can be an astronaut, a famous explorer, a pirate, or even a character in a book, movie or TV show. The possibilities are endless! For this one, it’s important to have a friend who knows what to do next. You will never go wrong dressing as a movie star! Look at the examples above: Mary Poppins, Scarlet O’Hara, and The Little Mermaid. If you want to be a different character, like the Little Mermaid, you could use your imagination and say you’re the mermaid, or you could ask your parents to buy you some green hairspray or even have a hairdo that is long and wavy. When you put it together, you should know that you’re going to be awesome! The main characters in a children’s story can be anything you want, including a monster who isn’t scary. A monster is something we can all relate to. Like the monster in Pinocchio. You know how the Little Red Riding Hood story goes? How scary is a little girl in a big, red cape going into the woods? But what if she were a little witch? Would she eat some candy corn in a bowl, ride on a broomstick, and use a spell on a pumpkin patch with a special witch on it? Sure, a monster can’t get his teeth into you, but with a little creative thinking, the story is endless, and you can never go wrong! So… Your little monster friend has a wonderful idea. She’ll start reading the monster book at her stop and when you get to your stop you can listen to it, too. But they know the monsters can’t read, so your friend will record the book and play it for you. You kids can stop and listen, read along, or finish the story at home. Everyone looks up the next day to see if they are in the “monster book”! It’s a big hit! There are lots of characters to choose from. Your monster buddy loves this one! The house is all ready for trick-or-treating. The neighbors love you. It’s Halloween! It’s the happiest time of the year! What happens next? Now we all know that the kids at the party will pick their favorite characters and then put on their costumes. They’ll show up with their monster friends in a costume of their own, and they’ll all dress up as the story characters. They’ll tell you the story and play all the games. Then… The kids will come to your house! Your monster friend and other kids in costume come to your house. Everyone has their costumes on, which are all just as magical and spooky as the monster characters. Your monster buddy is in his zombie disguise! One of the kids is in a little mermaid costume, the other kids are characters from their favorite Halloween movies. So you say, “Come in, come in.” The monster friends will show off their costumes by doing silly tricks and goofy stunts! Then you say, “What’s this?” It’s chocolate! But not regular chocolate! A special milk chocolate shaped like a monster’s face, to let the monster characters know that they’re loved and accepted. Everyone in the room is laughing because this is the best part of Halloween! But then everyone has to go home. Now what? But Halloween isn’t over! Next it’s time for trick or treating! You and all of your monster friends come out for trick or treating! You may come home with a lot of candy! You can have some of it! Then you’ll make up your mind about what you want to be your costume for the next year! Everyone comes to the party in costume. The kids love all the activities, but you and your monster friends love getting to talk about what they like about Halloween and the things they like to do! How fun! It’s a magical night! This story can be read aloud as a bedtime story or as a book group lesson. You can read it