Things that Go Bump in the Night Contest!
I love Halloween. It's my favorite time of the year. The weather's turning cooler, the leaves are changing, and crunch underfoot when you walk. The sharp scents of mums and wood smoke linger in the air. It puts me in mind of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" or anything by Poe. We study Poe every October, my students and I. He confuses the heck out of the 8th graders at first. When they start to get it, I love seeing their eyes widen in joy at understanding, then at horror when they fully comprehend. Eventually, the conversation always turns to ghosties and the things that go bump in the night. Now, I also admit I'm a chicken. I love Halloween, but I love cutesy Halloween more than "the veil is thinnest" Halloween. I love ghost stories. One of my students once gave me a book called Haunted Heartland a book of "true" ghost stories from Illinois and the surrounding states. I honestly don't know what happened to it. My