These days, Halloween starts as early as July in some places.
Parents rush to their local Walmarts or costume stores to make sure their children have the costumes they want. For college students, it can be a struggle to find that perfect outfit for Halloween parties, but typically outfits are planned last minute often with too much glue and sparkles.
To combat the hectic week before Halloween, libraries have created family-, adult-, and kid-friendly events to ease the transition into one of America’s favorite holidays.
At the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County they will be doing a Mystical Night, filled with tarot card readings from a local mystic geared towards adult. A trip into the neighboring Westwood community where haunted tours will be given to all ages will terrify and thrill the public into believe in the hauntings of Westwood.
At the Utica Public Library, a gaming event will be taking place where the library will be taking teams of teens on to play a video game called Nightmare. These are just some of the ways libraries have taken the fun-filled holiday and made it enticing to the community.
According to the EBSCOpost blog, there are five ways libraries can celebrate Halloween to make the week exciting leading up to the trick-or-treating festivities.
1. Host an Arts and Craft Event for Children
At Betts Branch Library today, children are encourage to come and create a “spooky signature” using ink and paper. By signing their name and drawing a picture, an image of a “ghost” will appear to frighten and awe!
2. Plan a Pumpkin-Carving Contest For Teens
Salina Library hosted a Halloween Lanterns event. This is a little different from carving your own pumpkins and making a gooey mess. Using a Cricut cutter, teens could create friendly or scary glowing pumpkin lanterns to use to make your Halloween night special!
3. Haunted October! Host Ghostly Activities For Young and Old By Combining Storytelling and Local History
At the Central Library in the city of Syracuse, they will have a spooky story-telling hour where children are welcome to come listen to these chilling Halloween stories.
4. Schedule a Horror Movie Night Series Throughout The Month of October
At the North Syracuse Public Library each Thursday night of this month they have held a showing of a horror movie for teens and adults to enjoy. This past Thursday, they showed a screening of John Krasinski’s, A Quiet Place.
5. Add More Horror Videos to Your Collections of DVDs and VHS (and Showcase Them!)
Syracuse University has a showcase of all the creepy titles in their collections on display on the first floor of Bird Library. This allows for students to know that they can have a spooky horror filled nights in with their friends or significant other. Or maybe if a professor is feeling frightful, they can tantalize their lectures with creepy these thrillers!
Halloween should be more than just about candy and parties. It should be about coming together as a community and enjoying the events that libraries have to offer. And if these five Halloween pick-me-ups don’t help you get into the spirit, I don’t know what will!
