Archives for October 19, 2023

This next one is filled with such fun holiday recipes!

Come little children (and their grown ups), we’ll take thee
away to a land of kitchen enchantment! Join the Sanderson
Sisters in your own “torture chamber” and whip up some
spellbinding treats in this first-ever Hocus Pocus cookbook
designed for kid chefs.
Introducing The Unofficial Hocus Pocus Cookbook for
Kids: 50 Fun and Easy Recipes for Tricks, Treats, and
Spooky Eats Inspired by the Halloween Classic by Bridget
Thoreson [ISBN: 978-1646045457; $17.95; Ulysses Press;
September 2023], a kid-friendly follow-up to the USA Today best-seller The Unofficial Hocus Pocus Cookbook (Ulysses Press, 2021).
Craft some fun kitchen magic just in time for Halloween with more than 50 recipes inspired by the two movies. These kid-friendly ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions are perfect for All Hallow’s Eve, Salem Scare Fest, or any time of year.
Young witches and wizards will learn to conjure:
• Magicae “Mac”-xima n’ Cheese
• Harvest Vegetable Pizza
• “A Good Zombie” Toast
• Life Potion Punch
• Fully Charged Crystal Candy

Here is one of my favorite recipes from the book:

Excerpted from The Unofficial Hocus Pocus Cookbook for Kids by Bridget Thoreson. Copyright © 2023 Ulysses Press. Reprinted with permission from Ulysses Press. New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Krispy Rice Booooooks

These books may not have been bestowed by strange and ridiculously beautiful witches in a dark wood, but since they’re treats meant for children, that is definitely a good thing. Like a magical tome containing powerful and evil spells, these treats will tempt anyone from young magicians to “clever white witches.”

You can get as cute or as ugly as you desire with your decorations, but remember that all great boooo—ooo-ooooks have all-seeing eyes.

SERVES 12

PREP TIME 10 minutes

COOK TIME 20 minutes

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 (10-ounce) package of marshmallows

6 cups crispy rice cereal

12 White Milk Chocolate Hershey’s Kisses

1 tube black or brown cake-decorating icing

1. Place the butter and marshmallows in a microwave-safe bowl and heat on high in the microwave for 2 minutes. Stir, then microwave for another minute. Stir until smooth.

2. Add the crispy rice cereal to the melted marshmallows and stir with a wooden spoon until evenly mixed.

3. Coat a 13 x 9-inch pan with cooking spray. Evenly press the marshmallow mixture into the pan, using a buttered spatula or wax paper. Let cool completely.

4. Once cool, cut into 12 rectangles, 2 x 3 inches each. Press a white chocolate candy, point-down, into the right side of each rectangle.

5. Cut the tip of the icing tube. Squeeze the tube gently to make eyelashes for the candy eyes, scars, or other decorations.

Self Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book to facilitate this post. Images and recipes were also provided.

Bring the haunt home and add Disney’s Haunted Mansion to your movie collection. The film arrives at all major digital retailers including Prime Video, Apple TV, and Vudu/Fandango on October 4 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on October 17.

Inspired by the classic theme park attraction, Haunted Mansion is “a ghoulish delight” (Aaron Neuwirth, We Love Entertainment) that “captures the spooky fun of the theme park ride with a gaggle of family-friendly humor” (Julian Roman, Movieweb).

Fans can add the film to their collection and access exclusive never-before-seen bonus features including deleted scenes, extended gag reel and exclusive featurettes. Disney+ viewers can also watch the film from October 4 when it debuts on the streaming service.

Film Synopsis
Inspired by the classic theme park attraction, Haunted Mansion tells the story of Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), a single mom, who discovers that the home she and her son share is haunted by irksome ghosts. Hoping to restore domestic tranquility, Gabbie recruits a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid the house of the supernatural squatters. A non-stop blend of action, adventure and comedy featuring an all-star cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Dan Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto, Haunted Mansion was written by Katie Dippold and directed by Justin Simien. The film’s producers are Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, with Nick Reynolds and Tom Peitzman serving as executive producers.

Bonus Features*
FEATURETTES:

• Making Haunted Mansion (13:05) Hear from cast, crew and filmmakers about creating this grim grinning adventure based on the world-famous ride. See how the ghosts were “brought to life,” what role new technology played, and how the wildly popular attraction inspired the film’s design.
• 999 Happy Haunts (7:05) There are 999 Happy Haunts inside the Disney Parks’ attraction…but always room for one more! See all the Easter eggs (well, maybe not all of them) where characters big, small, alive, departed, human and otherwise appear in both the movie and the ride.

DELETED SCENES:
Take a look at some moments that passed on before the final version of Haunted Mansion was finished.

• Carol (0:45)
• 1 Star (0:44)
• Harriet’s House Of Intuition (3:11)
• They Say The Place Is Haunted (1:16)
• Between Realms (1:42)
• Crump Manor (1:07)
• Emergency Baptism (1:01)
• A Good Head For Business (0:32)

GAG REEL:

• Who knew making a scary movie could be so funny!

I really enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it! A fun family Halloween movie!

Self Disclosure: I received digital assets and information to post.

Everyone knows Fall Hollow is haunted. It has been ever since Abigail Snook went into the woods many years ago, never to be seen again. Since then, it’s been a tradition for the sixth graders at Beckett Elementary to play the Bellwoods Game on Halloween night. Three kids are chosen to go into the woods. Whoever rings the bell there wins the game and saves the town for another year, but if Abigail’s ghost captures the players first, the spirit is let loose to wreak havoc on Fall Hollow—or so the story goes. Now that it’s Bailee’s year to play, she can finally find out what really happens. And legend has it the game’s winner gets a wish. Maybe, just maybe, if Bailee wins, she can go back to the way things used to be before her grandma got sick and everyone at school started hating her. But when the night begins, everything the kids thought they knew about the game—and each other—is challenged. One thing’s for sure: something sinister is at play…waiting for them all in the woods.

Author Bio: Celia Krampien grew up in a house in the woods in a small town near Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. She studied illustration at Sheridan College and currently lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, with her partner, a mischievous cat, and a nosy beagle. She is the author of The Bellwoods Game.

At its heart, OCTOBER WITCHES is about the importance of family and of connection with others. While the curse of being an October witch threatens to drive the entire family apart, it is Clemmie’s love for them and her determination not to give up that saves them all and brings them back together again. With Arthurian elements, themes of friendship and family, a whole lot of magic and witchery, and quirky, offbeat family of eccentric aunts, this is sure to please.

Clemmie’s voice is an absolute delight, and her quirky, offbeat family of eccentric aunts are, no pun intended, deeply enchanting. They are a new offering in a genre grounded by its casts of communities of idiosyncratic and unconventional women—think Practical Magic, Hocus Pocus, and The Craft.

Both books are perfect for Middle-grade students!

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

I’m the biggest fan of Snoopy and the Peanuts gang so I was delighted to receive this next book! A spooky season classic gets new life in this lap board book edition of the Peanuts gang’s whimsical Halloween adventures!

It’s Halloween night, and the Peanuts gang is busy dressing up in costumes, trick-or-treating, and bobbing for apples. Meanwhile, Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the pumpkin patch and bring toys to all the children of the world. Could this be the year it finally appears? I love this story and it’s a must-buy!

With her stick-on fangs and widow’s peak drawn in waterproof eyeliner, Sylvie is an expert at pretending to be a vampire. More kids at school would know that if they bothered to join her monster LARPing (live action role playing) club. Not even her dad understands her passion for the undead and denies her request to attend a monster LARPing summer camp. But Sylvie is not so easily deterred. She decides to tell her dad she’s attending another camp located near Monster Camp then sneak over to her real destination after he drops her off. Sylvie feels bad lying to her dad, but there’s no way she’s going to miss the chance to finally meet other kids that share her interests. And when she lays eyes on Monster Camp, she knows it was all worth it—the immersive campgrounds look like they came off a Hollywood lot! But when an obnoxious kid dressed like a werewolf gets punished by being magically turned into a Pomeranian, Sylvie realizes she made a critical miscalculation. These aren’t LARPers, they’re real monsters, and Sylvie’s preferred costume means she’s placed with blood-sucking, human-biting campers who would breathe fire if they knew the truth about her. She has no choice but to try to stick it out by doing exactly what she does best: pretending to be a monster.

About the Author: Sarah Henning is a recovering journalist who has worked for The Palm Beach Post, The Kansas City Star, Associated Press, and more. She is the author of Sea Witch, The Princess Will Save You, Throw Like a Girl, and Monster Camp, among others. When not writing, she runs ultramarathons, hits the playground with her two kids, and hangs out with her husband, Justin, who doubles as her long-suffering IT department. Sarah lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Visit her at SarahHenningWrites.com.

Happy Halloween!

Self Disclosure: I received free copies of the above books to facilitate this post. Images and information were also provided.