The House That Drac Built

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Summary: Here is a great house for kids to check out on Halloween
Review: As you can easily guess from the title, "The House That Drac Built" takes the basic structure of "The House That Jack Built" and throws in everything from a bat and a cat to a manticore and the fiend of Bloodygore. Everything chains out, albeit rattling chains covered with dust from a dungeon, and young children will love the way new monsters keep getting added into the mix. Then, just to make things really fun, some children show up trick or treating and pretty much scare the monsters. Author Judy Sierra keeps this relatively simply despite offering up such things as a fearsome manticore (apparently she and her husband like to convince trick-or-treaters that they have come to the house that Drac built, which apparently is located in Eugene, Oregon). Will Hillenbrand's illustrations are atmospheric without being overly spooky (e.g., the mummy from days of yore), thereby catching the whimsy of this particular tale. Be sure to have your kids check out the cover where all of the characters from inside the book can be found lurking around somewhere.

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Summary: This is a fabulous book to teach basic counting skills.
Review: I am a student studying to be a teacher at UNL. I used The House That Drac Built for a lesson on counting. I created a felt board and allowed the children to add the characters as I read. We counted them and then took them away at the end when the children arrive at Drac's home. I found this book to be very entertaing and useful in my lesson. It served as a perfect way to integrate literature into my Math lesson If you agree with me, please respond and let me know what you think! I would love to know what you think!