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What would Halloween be without black cats? One of my favorite literary felines is Nick Bruel’s Bad Kitty, a very naughty kitty who stars in a hilarious alphabet book. When I came across the sequel, Poor Puppy, at our recent Scholastic book fair, I had to bring the book home.

Poor Puppy features a happy-go-lucky puppy who wants to play with Bad Kitty. Bad Kitty is a smart feline, and stays out of the way while Poor Puppy destroys the house. Again, Bruel gives us a wonderful ABC book but this time includes numbers 1-26.

Kids ages three to eight will enjoy Poor Puppy and Bad Kitty’s antics. And parents will be scared silly by the destruction these two manage to cause. Who knew an ABC book could be a cautionary tale?

C is for Cupcake

Now let’s count how many fall pumpkin cupcakes we can make…and eat!

Fall Pumpkin Cupcakes 
From Denise Witmer, Your Guide to Parenting of Adolescents at About.com

This was the simplest pumpkin cupcake recipe I could find, and something even young children could help with. Have them spread the icing with a spatula, spoon or popsicle stick. They can also add the gumdrop “stem.”

If you want pumpkin flavored cupcakes, see if your favorite yellow or white cake mix offers a recipes for lower calorie/fat cupcakes using apple sauce. Try using pumpkin puree instead.

Ingredients:

1. Any flavor boxed cake mix
2. Ready-made white icing
3. Red and yellow food coloring
4. Green gum drops - one per cupcake
5. cupcake papers

Directions:

1. Make cupcakes according to the cake mix directions.
2. Try to fill the cupcakes higher than called for, but not too high.
3. Allow them to cool fully.
4. Mix white icing with red and yellow food coloring to make a pumpkin orange color. Start with 3 drops red and 4 drops yellow. Mix well. Continue adding from there if needed.
5. Spread icing on cupcakes and push a green gum drop in the center.

How easy was that?!

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