One of my favorite spooky stories growing up was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. When I was little, my grandmother (who was a children’s librarian) gave us a few books for Halloween one year and among them was an illustrated edition of Washington Irving’s story. I remember pouring over that book year after year.

The odd thing about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is that it’s not really scary. It’s actually kind of ridiculous. In many ways, the comical Disney adaptation is actually pretty accurate to the tone and voice of the story. I got easily creeped out by actual scary stories, so maybe that’s why this one was such a favorite!

One of my favorite alphabet book creators is Greg Paprocki and this page is from his book B is for Boo: A Halloween Alphabet, which includes a number of literary references throughout (Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, etc.). It makes me very happy to go through this one, especially when I is for one of my favorite spooky story characters, the hapless Icabod Crane!

I

is for Icabod Crane

If you haven’t read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I totally recommend it. I also recommend the fun animated Disney version from their 1949 movie “The Adventures of Icabod and Mr. Toad”. And if you want an actually spooky story, try the movie version from 1999, “Sleepy Hollow” (which is way darker and spookier than the actual source story). It’s a perfect Halloween story in whatever version you prefer!