Have No Fear! Halloween Is Here! is a Step 2 book in the Step into Reading Non-Fiction Readers series that The Cat in the Hat shows young readers how to have fun on Halloween.
This book is based on the television show The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot about Halloween! We follow Nick and Sally as they figure out what costume to wear for Halloween. Naturally, their friend The Cat knows just where to find the perfect costumes. As the three search for costumes, they meet Batty Bat. Nick and Sally learn that bats are flying mammals that hang by their feet and fly during the night to eat insects. Batty shows them to a spooky house, where Nick and Sally go in and pick out their Halloween costumes, which end up being bat costumes, and all four go trick or treating.
I have to say that I was disappointed in this book. We have several Cat in the Hat books and enjoy them a great deal. The illustrations are similar to any other Cat in the Hat book and the text is large enough for my son to work out sounds while learning to pronounce words. However, it did not teach my son about Halloween, like I thought it would and my son was looking forward to.
Here is what my 4-year old actually got from this book: 1. Bats eat insects at night (a good fact for kids to know), 2. You can find bats in caves (another accurate thing), 3. When lightning is far away, you don’t have to be scared of it (not sure I want him to ignore lightning), 4. It’s ok to break into someone’s house if it’s spooky (never is that ok), and 5. You can take stuff for your Halloween costume from spooky houses without asking (pretty sure that’s a crime). Would it have been too much to add one more page where they met the homeowner before taking their stuff?
No matter how you feel about the Common Core State Standards, parents are expected to have their children reading basic words and short sentences before they enter Kindergarten. I am finding that this series is helpful. The step by step program allows kids to learn to recognize words and start reading basic sentences. Most topics in this series sound interesting, like weather and dinosaurs. I just hope that the other books are more interesting than this one.
If you are looking a help in getting your child ready for Kindergarten or if you feel that they are falling behind in reading, then I would recommend this series as an aid. I would not recommend this book if your child wants a fun Halloween book.