Happy Halloween if you celebrate it! Here in Australia, Halloween is not universally embraced by adults, but most kids adore it! 
Modern Halloween morphed from the much richer and ancient European Samhain Autumn Festival or ‘Day of the Dead’. I must write a blog about that one day, however there are lots to be found with a quick web search on ‘Samhain traditions’. It was about honouring ancestors and the shadow, noticing that nature’s energy was quietening for the coming winter, not lollies and plastic masks! The following day the light was celebrated in what became “All Saints Day”.
Personally, I like the playfulness of it, even though I would MUCH rather celebrate it in Autumn rather than high Spring, when nature is bursting with vitality. But try telling your kids or students that! My 11 and 14 years old kids certainly won’t listen to me on that! So my partner will be carving a watermelon today, we have the treats stocked up and my daughter has been busy decorating the house.
But if you’d like to have a few spooky, but not too terrifying stories for kids, here are four that are on my ‘Stories’ You Tube playlist.
They can also work for adults, so maybe you should try one out tonight?!! I DARE YOU! Mahhaha! (Cue: maniacal cackling!)
1. ‘Boy Bow Bird’ is a spooky story from Samoa from my Hawaiian friend Jeff Gere, with an environmental note. Jeff has a larger than life style and uses pigeon English a lot in his stories, so you would have to put the story into your own words. I did. I told it myself for the first time yesterday to some intellectually impaired adults. They loved it!
I also told the Japanese Kamishibai story
2. “Three Paper Charms” with my new kamishibai story stage- which can be enormously funny, if you play up the part where the charm pretends to be stuck on the toilet and the part where the monk is slow coming to the boys rescue.
3. Abiyoyo by Pete Seeger is a song, but you can also retell it without music, if not musical!
3. The Russian ‘Vasalissa and Baba Yaga’ story is another great spooky story, which is also a tale of female initiation- scroll down the playlist to find Part 1 and 2.
Have a great day and weekend, whatever you celebrate!
