On Halloween is a very short Choose-Your-Own-Path ebook created by writer Michele Lee and her seven year old daughter Mini Lee for 7-12 year olds.  It deals with issues related to bullying (very timely, since October is National Bullying Prevention Month), encourages the exercise of decision-making skills, uses great descriptive language, and has both cliffhangers and humor going for it. Full disclosure, Michele is a co-conspirator here at MonsterLibrarian.com, and I was a beta reader for On Halloween.

It’s because I was a beta reader that I have gotten to see the positive impact this has on kids’ imaginations (or at least on one kid’s imagination). My precocious five year old, reading over my shoulder, wanted me to read the whole thing aloud to him. Then he wanted me to type up his own story about a haunted house. Then he wanted me to read it again. Then he tried to type up his own story (that was pretty funny as he doesn’t really have a handle on spelling yet). Then he sneaked onto my laptop, figured out how to open the file the story was in, and started reading it again. Then he wanted me to write another story.

Now, he is an unusual kid, but this is impressive. Teachers, parents, and librarians, take note: this is a story able to engage readers with even very rudimentary reading skills. Even if kids can’t read all the words, they can get the gist, enough to get caught up in the story. I can’t even begin to tell you how impressed I am to see that this story had such an impact on my own kid. On Halloween is currently offered for free to educators through Michele’s blog in ePub, mobi, and PDF formats. I encourage you to check it out.

And please do let Michele know if you use this with your kids.