Every Scary Story

Kidsmith is celebrating Halloween in style this month. In addition to our decked-out displays of Halloween-themed picture books and activity books, we've also got a couple things happening for older kids and teens.

FIRST: Readers who like to take a chance can grab one of our bookseller-selected mystery reads from our TRICK OR TREAT YOURSELF display. (If any of you enjoyed our Blind Date With A Book display this February, come in for a second round!) These are some of our favorite wickedly creepy books for middle grade and young adult readers. Don't you trust us?


SECOND: K-12 readers, let us know the name of your favorite scary book, and be entered to win free advance copies of this year's best and scariest MG/YA books! We'll be drawing our winners on Halloween. (Check out the great and various books people have picked so far on the pumpkins all over our display.)

Head back to the tree in the kids' section to find our display!

Even with all this going on, the kids' booksellers still haven't been able to talk enough about some of our favorite recent Halloween-y books. Here are a few more titles that you might want to check out.

Intermediate

OUR FAVORITE: The Nest by Kenneth Oppel. The best horror stories have something true right at the center of them, and this book does that exquisitely. It's about an anxious boy with a sick little brother, being asked in his dreams by sentient wasps to just...maybe...let them...replace...his brother with a better one, a healthier one. Despite the fear factor and the big themes, this one is good for grade-schoolers and parents alike.

MORE RECOMMENDATIONS:
A Curious Tale of the In-Between by Lauren DeStefano

Took by Mary Downing Hahn
Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith
The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud

Young Adult

OUR FAVORITE: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle is the story of a family that, each October, suffers an unusual storm of accidents, from the minor to the fatal. Hiding beneath the cuts, burns, and bruises, the bubble-wrapped tables and the plaster casts, are the bitter secrets of a family--one that has failed to keep itself safe so badly that now, once a year, everything is dangerous. This book gets dark, but its ghostly atmosphere and fiercely devoted characters will draw you through to the end.

MORE RECOMMENDATIONS:
Nightfall by Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski
The Fall by Bethany Griffin
Witch's Boy by Kelly Barnhill


Lastly, for those younger princesses, goatherds, and mighty warriors among you, don't forget to join us on Sunday, October 18th at 2 PM for our PRINCESS IN BLACK party, celebrating the second book in our favorite chapter book series! Feel free to dress up, and look forward to crafts and fun!

Kidsmith Insurgent poster giveaway!

Hullo Initiates!

One of the perks to working in such a brilliantly established bookstore is that we get all sorts of goodies sent to us. Posters, advanced copies, bookmarks stickers, the occasional tee-shirt. Sometimes we fight over them. Sometimes our buyer claims them before we even get to see them (she has a habit of hiding all Oliver Jeffers that appear.) Sometimes the "adults" decide that if we can't play nice no one can have them.

Sometimes we decide to be nice.

This is, begrudgingly, one of those nice times.


Mostly because couple of months back the Kidsmith team started a twitter. We have a lot of enthusiasm and could only express so much of it before we started to alarm customers. We needed an outlet.

Twitter seemed an appropriate platform. It allows us to be fast and enthusiastic but still limited in length.

And we are enthusiastic and we are excited each and every time that we gain a new follower. We appreciate that you are willing and eager to read our thoughts so we wanted to do something in return.

Which leads me to...

GIVING A THING AWAY!

We were sent this really awesome poster for the Insurgent movie that comes out on Thursday.

 

See, it's brilliant!

It loves you even if you don't love the movies.

While I wouldn't mind hanging it up in my room, the wall space is devoted mostly to bookshelves. Also, I won the battle for the giant poster of the Allegiant cover so...

Anyway! We decided that it would be pretty cool to do a giveaway to all of you wonderful people!

A couple of months back the Kidsmith team started a twitter. We have a lot of enthusiasm and could only let so much of it out before we started to alarm customers. We needed an outlet.

Twitter seemed an appropriate platform. It allows us to be fast and enthusiastic but still limited in length.

And we are enthusiastic and we are excited each and every time that we gain a new follower. We appreciate that you are willing and eager to read our thoughts so we wanted to do something in return.

Unfortunately, the giveaway is only open to those in the U.S. at the moment (sorry).

So check it out and enter below!

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

 Who knows if this goes well maybe we'll do another giveaway. I did say we get a lot of advanced copies...

Children's Author and Illustrator Week: Because Obviously That Alligator Eats People

This week is children's author and illustrator week. In celebration the Booksmith kids team is putting up something new and kids related everyday this week. We spend most of our lives celebrating kids books and will seize any excuse to share that with the world.

Monday Alex talked about picture books.
Tuesday I did a brief recap of the Youth Media Awards

Today, I am going to talk about something about kids books that I have such a great appreciation for:

Dark, off-beat humor.

Off-beat humor has always existed and I'm pretty sure it's always been in kids books but it seems to be on a major upswing now.

This is the time of Jon Klassen and what-did-happen-to-the-rabbit.

This might actually be one of my favorite illustrations ever.

Oliver Jeffers and the cup who just wants to know what it's like by the window and throws itself out of the cabinet to the concrete counter.

Me too!

Mac Barnett and man-a-blue-whale-is-the-best-punishment-ever.

Neil Gaiman and I-love-my-dad-but-it's-TWO-goldfish.

They are really pretty goldfish...

Mo Willems and the-snake-wants-to-play-catch-so-we'll-just-keep-throwing-things-at-him.

And it's not just the picture books. Lemony Snicket made a name for himself writing about books that tell the reader everyone inside is miserable. Yes, they are and the books are so bleak they have a ridiculous humor to them.

Not only that, look at some of the books that are still classics. Every book by Roald Dahl ever. Edward Gorey (though, I think it's mostly adults who go for this one). Maurice Sendak. Not the lightest fare.

I started to say that I like cute books as much as anyone but that's not entirely true. I do like some cute books but I like the ones that have a really melancholy sort of edge. Pure sweet has never really been my thing.

One of the sweetest picture books I like is Oliver and His Alligator and Oliver's alligator eats people when he gets nervous.

I love the alligator. Just look at it.

The thing is that I don't think it's really the sort of thing most kids pick for themselves either. The truth is kids are blood thirsty creatures. They love conflict, the more ridiculous and bleak the better. There's the really wonderful line in Holly Black's Darkest Part of the Forest that goes:

"Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice."

Yes! They do! Read I Want My Hat Back with some kids and ask them what happened to the rabbit at the end.

The sweet, heart-felt books are good and kids should get to see those too but there's something about the absoluteness of dark humor that just makes perfect sense to kids and, I as a person who never grew out of that dark sense of humor, really appreciates that authors are still willing to embrace that and that parents are still willing to buy them.

Plus, any excuse to talk more about Mac Barnett makes the whole kids section happy so there's that.

YOU CAN FIND KIDSMITH LITERALLY EVERYWHERE

Heads up, Booksmithies! Kidsmith has recently acquired a Twitter. Follow us @kidsmithbooks for:

• Book recs
• Upcoming kids' events
• New releases
• Tooooootally conversing with famous authorrrrrrsssss
• Thrilling photos of all four of us crammed in a glass coffin with Holly Black to celebrate her new book and general greatness
• MORE

 What are we featuring today? Our weekend reads, tomorrow's BEAR STORYTIME (10:30AM!), and our Blind Date with a Book display, bringing you our very favorite mystery reads.

TWEET WITH US! It will be so rad.

Jeff Kinney at Brookline Booksmith!

Last sunday, if you have been walking through Coolidge Corner, you no doubt would have noticed the gargantuan Enterprise truck that was parked outside of our store, and the large cardboard cutouts that sufficiently bundled gentlemen were hastening to unload from it.

This would have been for our event with Jeff Kinney, author of popular "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series. This, however, was no usual event. This was a Jeff Kinney experience, complete with stations, games, photo ops, and finally, a signed copy of your favorite Wimpy Kid books and a handshake with Jeff Kinney himself. It was like nothing Booksmith has ever done before, and frankly, after seeing how sucessful it was, I think we should probably start holding such events for adult books, too!

Another day at the book store, complete with large fake pig

We were really worried you didn't have all the Wimpy Kid books....

In no time at all, folks started lining up and moving through the store. They visited all the booths, got to play 'Plinko', got a chance to guess the weight of a large paper mache pig. There was even a booth I didn't get to see in action, but consisted of a large table filled with old shoes. Curiosities were abundant! After interacting with, and having their picture taken by, numerous book store workers and event staff alike (some dressed up in top hats, coats and tails), event attendees found themselves outside Card and Gift, at the front of aisle 4. There, they got their books signed by Jeff Kinney, who was warm, welcoming, and engaging.

Clarissa and Zoe mug by one of the photo backdrops

This event was a great success! We are looking forward to what other crazy events the kids book world can send our way! Old shoes, fake pigs, and lake backdrops, oh my!!

You can follow our events series by checking out our events website,  which is kept painstakingly up to date. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates on our upcoming events. Special thanks to Jeff Kinney and his team for making this incredible evening in our very own book store!