
(Review copy provided by The Jim Henson Company)
With a full moon shining above, only the brave dinos climb aboard the night train. Buddy, Mr. Pteranodon and Tiny ready themselves for a spooky scavenger hunt adventure lead by the conductor, a Troodon dinosaur. The dinosaurs quickly learn that the conductor has night vision and his eyes "glow," a rather spooky sight. The group of dinosaurs uses their sense of smell, hearing, and vision to find various things during their nighttime scavenger hunt.

I tend to bypass commercialized books because they often fail to measure up to my standards. While the writing in this one isn't stellar, I must admit The Spooky Scavenger Hunt does provide a nice springboard for talking about many scientific topics such as the senses and eyeshine or tapetum lucidum (the reason some animal's eyes glow/reflect light at night). According to scientists, Troodons most likely had nocturnal vision. Also, for those looking for spooky but not scary books without a Halloween slant, this one fits the bill. It doesn't specifically mention Halloween, candy, costumes or anything else associated with the holiday. Too bad the publishers didn't print actual glow-in-the dark eyes on the pages. While my kids generally liked the story, I think it would have been an even bigger spooky hit with glow-in-the dark Troodon eyes!
While I'm not positive, I believe this story is based on an older Dinosaur Train episode called "Night Train." See a snippet below:
Next week, the Jim Henson Company is gearing up for Halloween with two new 2011 PBS kids Halloween episodes:
Sid the Science Kid Halloween Episode - "Spooky Science" - premieres 10/17 on PBS Kids (check local listings, repeats the following days: 10/25, 10/28, 10/30, 10/31)

Since the book didn't have actual "glowing" nocturnal eyes we decided to make some of our own! The kids used some glow-in-the dark fabric paint and painted sets of eyes onto dark blue paper. After the eyes dried, we went into a dark room with the pictures. Several pairs of spooky eyes looked right at us! :)
For the record, glow-in-the-dark paint is awesome, and my kids adore using it in their various craft projects. If you don't own any, I highly recommend purchasing some, especially with Halloween approaching. (We used Tulip 3D Glow-in-the-dark Natural Fashion Paint for this project.)









Add a spooky, but not too scary read to your children's book collection! The Jim Henson Company has kindly offered to give away a copy of The Spooky Scavenger Hunt Dinosaur Train book.

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32 comments:
I have to get myself some of that glow-in-the-dark stuff :) Favorite Halloween movie? Hmm... It has to be Ghostbusters.
I completely forgot about glow in the dark paint. Emily will love using it. She loves the glowsticks and glow in the dark stars. Thank you so much for sharing and linking up to stART!
For an Entry: My favorite Halloween Movie would have to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
Michelle @ A Mommy's Adventures
Thank you for linking to Read.Explore.Learn.
I hadn't thought about using glow in the dark paint for Halloween projects. Your project looks awesome.
Favorite Halloween movie has to be It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! It's a tradition to watch it. I used to watch it every year with my dad when I was little.
Glow in the dark paint is awesome! I'm going to have to pick some of that up. Fun idea.
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My kids love the Dinosaur Train episode that goes along with this book!
They also love pumpkin books; the one they are reading at the moment is "Five Little Pumpkins", which is not very scary.
I follow you!
Thanks for linking at Feed Me Books Friday! My son is wary about spooky and not into scary AT ALL, so our selection is pretty tame. I think my favorite is And Then Comes Halloween, because it's more about the season than the tricks and treats. I love your glowing eye project and I'm really impressed by your photography - glowing subjects are hard!
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I love Skeleton Hiccups!
I'm impressed at how well the photos of your spooky eyes came out!
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I used to be scared to death of the Halloween movies and didn't watch them until I was an adult, but now I love watching them!
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Our favorite is Eve Bunting's Scary, Scary Halloweens great story with beautiful pictures.
Theresa N
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My favorite is It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
pbclark(at)netins(dot)net
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Ooh very spooky and great fun :-)
Thanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
Hei, definitely my favorite is the R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series :-)
The Great Pumokin Charlie Brown is my all time favorite!
Thanks!
My favorite Halloween book is "The Pumpkin Gospel" by Mary Minz Simon. The back cover description reads- "Carving a pumpkin can teach your entire family how God transforms us into beautiful creations to shine for Him." The front cover glows in the dark too! Thanks so much!
(sarahburrows4@aol.com)
Our favorite Halloween book is Frankie Stein.
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any Goosebumps book
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tweet https://twitter.com/#!/phxbne/status/126695505127419904
We love The Great Pumpkin
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we just watched spooky buddies last night very cute.
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