Too Many Tricks or Treats? The Twelve Days of Halloween by Jenna Lattice

ON THE FIRST DAY OF HALLOWEEN
WHAT SHOWED UP AT OUR DOOR?

ONE VERY EAGER
TRICK OR TREATER!

When most kids think of counting on Halloween, they think of toting up the candy bars in the loot piled in their plastic pumpkin.

But Jenna Lattice's The 12 Days of Halloween (Pictureback(R)) (Random House, 2017) offers youngsters a chance to count along as the usual articles of Halloween count up (or down) to the big day! First, we need to decorate the front porch--

Two stuffed scarecrows, three grinning pumpkins....

And how about creeping spiders? Black cats yowling? Haunts a'haunting? And to anchor the count, a line to repeat: (Two times! But who's counting?)

FIVE BAGS OF CANDY!

One by one, day by day, the Halloween icons appear in the scene, trailed by that one poor misinformed trick-or-treater, still sadly unsatisfied, hopefully following the red devils, screechy witches, and toothy vampires to the doorbell, until he at last he gets his long-anticipated reward.

Children who know the tune to "The Twelve Days of Christmas" will get a pre-tricking treat out of singing along with this one, and if they don't already know how to count to twelve, they will after all the incidental learning as they sing this repetitive rhyming and rhythmic song. And for that October holiday, enjoy the fun of the proceedings portrayed in jolly holiday style by illustrator Colleen Madden.

And for a little reader treats, there are 30 comic stickers in the back of the book. And at the very end everyone gets to shout out, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

For more fun singing famous recycled folk tunes, read this one along with Lucille Colandro's lilting holiday countdown, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! (A Board Book) (Read my review here).