Boo! The Ghosts Go Haunting by Helen Ketteman

The kids are back to school at Mt. Tombs Elementary, assignments are written on the board, and their books are open on their desks, but the kids are still haunted--haunted by the ghost of summers past. If only something fun could happen!

And then...

THE GHOSTS GO HAUNTING, ONE BY ONE.
THE PRINCIPAL LEAPS FROM HIS CHAIR AND RUNS.
AND THEY ALL GO SCREECHING ALL OVER THE SCHOOL. BOO!
FOR SOME HALLOWEEN FUN.

What is this? The principal and teachers are all aghast! But their students are thrilled with the diversion of a spooky intrusion into the day's deadly drill.

The scary invaders continue: There are witches flying two by two, and then goblins groaning, moaning WOE, WOE, WOE! three by three. They chase the librarian away from her circulation desk, but not without a fight, as she bravely stamps one OVERDUE.

A diversion was overdue, the kids giggle, as they watch bats flying down the hall, four by four, FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! FLAP! as the teachers exit through the front door.

Monsters come five by five, stomping and clomping, capturing the computer repairman alive. Black cats hiss, six by six, and the nurse goes down like a load of bricks.

Spiders creep, seven by seven, and mummies moan, eight by eight. Nine by nine, skeletons come rattling their chains, and then come the zombies, stumbling and mumbling

BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS!

No one is left, not the janitor, not the coach, not even the lovely lunch ladies, except for the kids, of course. And they declare it a holiday ...

AND THE WHOLE SCHOOL PARTIES FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.

Helen Ketteman's latest jolly Halloween fare, The Ghosts Go Haunting (Albert Whitman and Company, 2014) combines a counting lesson with some pre-holiday Halloween fun for the students at Mt. Tombs Elementary. To Ketteman's rhymes, borrowed from the familiar "The Ants Go Marching" nursery song, artist Adam Record adds some visual humor to the mix as the students make the most of his comic Halloween preview. Ketteman even appends diagrams of one by one to ten by ten for some early grade counting/multiplication practice to add to the counting fun in the text itself. For another Ketteman Halloween treat, pair this one with her At the Old Haunted House.