A Frightfully Great Halloween Site

Several years ago, the marketing guru Kirsten Cappy of Curious City had a wonderful idea – why not build a Halloween-themed website that will allow kids access to stories, and create printable downloads for folks to put into Trick or Treat bags? That site – Trick-or-Reaters – has taken off, and now, in a new and improved version, anyone (parents, teachers, librarians, grandparents…) can download and print a give-away with links to the curated list of stories the site features. Here to answer my questions and tell us about the site, how it works, and its future is Amy Wells Denecker, who has recently updated the site for Curious City.

Illustrator Kevan Atteberry has created spooky-great artwork for the site.

  1. It’s a brilliant idea – filling kids’ minds with stories instead of filling their bellies with candy at Halloween. When a child goes to the site, what will they find?

We’ve worked hard to design a homepage that is accessible and visually appealing to children. Kevan Atteberry’s amazing artwork is the foundation for that, of course, but we hope that the Scare-o-Meter and the crystal ball selection tools will make it easy and exciting for kids to explore the site to find books they’ll love. Once young readers have made their selections, they can read a bit about the author and the book in the “Creepy Creator” and “Wicked Read” sections. The “Snatch a Story” section includes features like book excerpts, sequential artwork, book trailers, and audio clips, which bring the book to life, and in many cases, authors share “Free and Freaky” activities, which provide curious kids with creative, book-based projects to work on even after they’ve put the computer away.

  1. How many books are featured on the site? Are they all Halloween-themed or do you have some variety?

We have nearly 150 books featured on Trick-or-Reaters.com, and they are not all Halloween-themed, though they do tend to focus in some way on magical, fantastical or scary stories. As our founder Kirsten Cappy has said, “Halloween is a day where we all play with story.  Millions dress up to celebrate the heroes, villains, and other characters that strike their fancy,” and that’s really what’s at the heart of Trick-or-Reaters—the stories we like to tell and the people we imagine being on Halloween–so even if even if kids aren’t looking for a fright, they are certain to find something that they’ll like on the T.O.R. website. We have books about the simple act of dressing up for our youngest readers, books about ninjas and pirates for those seeking adventure, and good old-fashioned ghost stories for older readers looking for a scare.

  1. For authors, what are the steps to join the site? I know that my own site features an audiobook selection. Do you collaborate with authors and publishers to choose the right material for the site?

If an author is interested in adding a book to Trick-or-Reaters, he/she can complete the contact form on the “Add a Story” page or simply email us at info@trickorreaters.com. From there, we’ll work with the author to gather the necessary materials, including the selections for “Snatch a Story” and “Free and Freaky,” and once we have those materials in place, we’ll create a feature post for the book. Authors who don’t have these materials readily available shouldn’t fret; we’d be happy to collaborate on creative ways to promote their fabulous books on our site.

Treat bags filled with cookies and literacy activities and site instructions.

  1. Have you had any feedback from libraries and teachers about the program?

Yes, based on responses we received in conjunction with a T.O.R. book giveaway last year, they’re very enthusiastic. Overall, they report how happy they are to have something to share with children besides candy, and most were eager to distribute the flyers in their schools and libraries. A few even mentioned how excited children would be to curl up with these stories on a cold winter night, so we were thrilled to imagine the site’s reach even after Halloween.

  1. Do you plan to keep expanding the program? Any new features?

Yes, absolutely! Our main goal for this year was to redesign the site. We wanted to create an actual Scare-o-Meter and reconfigure the search tools to make the site more accessible for children seeking books in a particular age-range or genre. Moving forward, we hope to add many new books to the site, but beyond that, we’ve brainstormed developing a version of the site for young adult readers, adding a featured audiobook selection each Halloween, much like AudioFile does with their Sync program in the summer, collaborating with authors to provide event planning one-sheets so that libraries and schools can host Halloween-themed events featuring their books, and arranging contests where kids could win an author visit to their school or library.

Do go visit the site – it’s truly awesome – and give the kids who ring your doorbell this Halloween something that will last a lot longer (and is a lot healthier!) than candy.