Friday, October 18, 2013

Review: Halloween Quiz Game Book: How Spooktacular Are You? by Larissa Larsen

Today's review is for Halloween Quiz Game Book: How Spooktacular Are You?

Up until now, I had only read what I would call "regular" ebooks. This one is different. The format is fun (albeit sometimes a tad confusing) as you jump from one link to another answering different Halloween-related questions. Keep track of how many you answer correctly on the first try! Once you reach the end, you can see how well you did (I'm a "Spookcatular Expert", hehe). Great big images accompany the questions, and because I was reading on my computer's Cloud Reader (I don't actually own a Kindle), a lot of the text was left hanging so sometimes I encountered just one line or one word alone on a page. I suppose that with an actual Kindle that does not happen, since the screens are quite different.

There are many questions, all related to Halloween or typical Halloween creatures such as Frankenstein's monster. This is great for the kids, and also for anyone looking to pass a pleasant time while discovering neat tidbits about this holiday. I especially liked the explanation about the meaning of the witches' cauldron (I didn't know that one!).

That being said, I personally would have preferred longer answers for most of the questions. For example, there is a question regarding Jack-o'-Lanterns, and I feel the answer held missed potential for a nice story regarding the origin of the term, and why pumpkins are used now instead of the original "lanterns" (do you know what they were?). Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised when, at the end of the quiz, I discovered a few pages with historical and fun facts such as the origin of Halloween, "souling," and many others explained in a clear and easy way.

Also at the back of the book, the author suggests some community-friendly Halloween activities, and offers several links to a selection of further holiday reading.

Overall, I would recommend this quick and interactive read to families and teachers. I can imagine using this with my ESL students, or using it with small children. The images are well-chosen and you can complete the entire quiz and the final information in around forty minutes.

For its quirky genre, I would give it a 4 over 5.

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