Blog Posts by Subject: Halloween

[Today's guest blogger is brought to you courtesy of E. C. Comics Tales From the Crypt.]

Hello, kiddies!

Welcome to The New York Public Li-bury!

Heh-heh-heh!

Surprised to find me as your guest flogger? I suppose, if you looked hard enough, you'd find all sorts of things buried in the Library's hacks. "But can he write?" you ask. Well, I am good at de-composing!

For all you skullers and hackademics out there, I would like to present another quivering collection of 

On Halloween, Morrisania Library was lucky enough to host storyteller extraordinaire LuAnn Adams. I had seen Adams at Edenwald library in August 2008 for a Summer Reading celebration, and I really became enamored with her work. I also saw her Dr. Seuss storytelling program in one of the neighborhood libraries in Manhattan, as well as her Stranger Danger Little 

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to avoid the typical horror films of vampires, zombies, ghosts,

Last year I blogged about Halloween movies that were inspired by books. This year, as I ponder what costume I would like to wear, in a season that promises to be rife with Lady Gagas and “The Situation”s, I thought I’d mention a few books that could be (very loosely) interpreted to inspire your own costume selections.

They might not always be walking, but in the books on this list the dead are always talking. Ten books, in no particular order, where the dead sometimes walk, sometimes talk, and always play a huge part in the story. Books with that perfect eerie feel to get you in the mood for some candy... er, for Halloween I mean—obviously.

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

The dead are walking in Oakvale, Connecticut—at  

That time of year has descended upon us yet again—it is time to celebrate the macabre, to relish the goblins and embrace the demons (no, I am not referring to fast approaching interactions with family members during Thanksgiving that many experience, although one of my family members is suspiciously too financially enriched in October.  The apparent financial windfall enjoyed by the relevant family member every October has given rise to some rather nasty rumors that he is receiving royalties on the literal plethora of devil costumes donned by various entities on Halloween. 

Halloween is fast approaching, as is the opening of the new film, The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden in early November. Of course, many great books have been made into movies, and sure, there's the Twilight series and Cirque du Freak, both book 

I grew up in a kinder and gentler world (and I’m not that old) where I remember roaming the streets of the various towns I lived in wearing my Halloween costume and ringing the doorbells of strangers for my “Trick or Treat.” I’ve got a particularly warm and fuzzy memory of being a fifth grader when we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and being dropped off in a posh neighborhood so I could collect great swag from the nice houses there.

Boy, those days are gone! No sane parent would expose their child to the mercies of strangers in these times, and as a 

As a professional librarian at the main reference desk, I do whatever it takes to respond to a particular question, and I never become judgmental about the quality of that question. That’s Library School 101. I will admit, however, to wondering sometimes where certain questions come from, or what it might mean for the culture at large when a number of people start asking the same question at the same time. For instance, what should I make of the fact that there have been several requests lately--by New Yorkers, no less!-- for books about vampires? Is it because Halloween is coming? 

I’m a more-or-less rational person. Anything with even a whiff of mysticism strikes me as a great yawn. And I believe dead is dead. Case closed. La commedia è finita. Curiously, I’m also a fan of ghost stories. Contradictory? Maybe it’s that I’ve been working at the New York Public Library for so long, I’ve come to feel like a ghost myself, haunting its marble corridors.

Not to split genre hairs, but I’m not so enamored of horror stories--or movies, for that matter--particularly not modern ones, whose main purpose seems to be to