This marks the first year my daughter (now three) actually cared what her Halloween costume was.  She wanted to be a princess.  I brought home The Paper Bag Princess in response.  No worries.  She won’t be wearing a paper bag or anything.  I just wanted to combat the princess notion any which way.  And now – links!

Almost exactly a year ago I attended the Society of Illustrators show where some of the best picture book art of the year was on display.  At that time the show was honoring the late great artist Barbara Cooney (she of Miss Rumphius fame, amongst other things).  Her son, Barnaby Porter, was on hand to talk about her and in the course of his talk he explained what exactly she would do on Halloween.  I’ve remembered it ever since and figured some of you Cooney fans out there might get a kick of Rocco Staino’s recording of Barnaby’s memories.

Fair play to Brooklyn Public Library, by the way.  They take the cake when it comes to faux hauntings.  At NYPL we haven’t a single named ghost in the system.  I mean, we all know that the Ottendorfer branch is the haunted one, but I’d love a name to go along with all the mysterious goings on. The other day Adam Rex tweeted the following: “Game I play every October: try to discover a children’s character with a commercially available costume but NO sexy version of said costume.”  Challenge accepted!  Except . . . dang it.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  Not Amelia Bedelia.  Not Curious George (really, people?).  Not the aforementioned Paper Bag Princess (though those get really quite creative).  In the end, it turned out that Clifford the Big Red Dog was the only safe one left.  The same, I suspect, cannot be said for his companion Emily Elizabeth. Finally, today is the day when the children’s book publishers all across this great nation doff their craziest book-related costumes.  If you want a taste of what that feels like, here‘s last years costuming kookiness.  Fun Extra: If you look at the Raven Boys crew, my husband’s the raven on the far right.  True story.