Originally Posted By alexbook An organization called Books for Treats (<a href="http://www.booksfortreats.org/" target="_blank">http://www.booksfortreats.org/</a>) is urging people to give out books instead of candy for Halloween. Normally, I'm all in favor of anything that gets books into the hands of kids, but I'd be reluctant to try this. I can't help recalling a story I heard about an uncle of mine who tried handing out colorfully wrapped vegetables to Trick or Treaters. In revenge, some kids TP'ed his house.
Originally Posted By Mr X Some horrible woman in my old neighborhood once had the gaul to hand out toothbrushes. We got her good.
Originally Posted By Spyderman I hope the books are"Dreams of my father", "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama and "My Life" by Bill Clinton. No child will walk away disappointed if they get one of those.
Originally Posted By threeundertwo <---likes to do the fake-out with a big bowl of vegetables just to see their faces, then hands over the big candy bars.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Books are heavy and can hurt when they are immediately flung back in your direction.
Originally Posted By DAR <<I hope the books are"Dreams of my father", "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama and "My Life" by Bill Clinton. No child will walk away disappointed if they get one of those. >> Kids would be disappointed if they received any book.
Originally Posted By dlkozy Reading this article-the author is encouraging people to shop garage sales and give out used books. Let's see. I would need about 45 books in various age ranges so that I will now have to guess the ages of my treaters to give an age appropriate book. I will have needed to shop many garage sales, book sales to be able to buy this many used books to hand out. Think I will stick with the candy.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Yeah, that's just strange. I thought maybe they had produced some little miniature version of a childrens book that could be purchased in bulk to give out as an alternative to candy. That'd be okay, and so long as a kid just got a couple of those, might be seen as an acceptable treat. Among a big bag of candy, the little book would be like a prize amongst Cracker Jacks. But I don't see this movement catching on via needing to shop at garage sales and the like.
Originally Posted By threeundertwo Funny enough, I was just digging out our pumpkin carving stuff from the Halloween box and I hit the motherlode of Halloween books for kids. I'll keep them by the front door and distribute to little kids along with candy. What the heck. Gets them out of my house, and they're all cute and in good shape.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder My next door neighbor is a retired school teacher. She gives out school supplies.
Originally Posted By 999HAUNTS Target had a package of little Halloween activity books to give out to the freeloa....er, I mean trick or treaters.
Originally Posted By velo When my kids were younger I remember someone handing out miniature Golden Books as treats. I thought that was great. The kids weren't so pleased though...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Hell, when I was a kid, I thought GUM was a ripoff treat. I can't imagine how I'd have thought about books. (And I LIKED books.) To me, good treats were: Miniature candy bars Hershey kisses Milk Duds Anything chocolate, basically Caramel and variations like Sugar Daddies Acceptable treats were: Sweet Tarts (including the small rolls you only saw on Halloween) Pixie Sticks Individually wrapped candies like the Brach's stuff you could get at the supermarket Little boxes of raisins (some would disagree, but I liked raisins) Un-good treats were: Gum Candy cigarettes (they were perfectly acceptable at the time, but they tasted like chalk) Wax lips or wax anything
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Oh yeah. I meant to add any hard candy including lollipops. Lame! Tootsie pops acceptable though. Chocolate inside.
Originally Posted By Mr X Of course Tootsie pops are fine. A couple of years ago we were visiting home with Little X and took her for her first and only Trick or Treat night. We went to a distant cousins house for some reason (they wanted to host, the whole family wanted to see Little X since she lives so far away and is so damned cute), and these cousins are quite well-to-do. So their neighborhood is full of big, lovely homes in a quiet community. Essentially - rich folk. Well I never saw such a pathetic Halloween take as this, lemme tell ya. Mostly freakin dum-dums, or little cheapo crap of varying candiness, and very, VERY few bars of chocolate. I guess that's how they remain rich. (back in my hood where I grew up, it was strictly a working class, double/triple decker kind of city, and those folks gave out the GOOD STUFF, often they'd just throw a handful of the good junk right in your bag instead of just 1 or 2 bars)
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder In 1993, the year I lived in my grandfather's house in Rancho Palos Verdes after he passed away, on Halloween I put on a gorilla mask, white gloves, sport coat and tie and gave out candy. However, I also stuffed my pockets with bananas. I said nothing, just grunted. As each kid would come to the door, I would clutch a banana to my chest like I liked it very much and then offer one out. Out of probably some 100 kids I saw that night, only one decided he wanted the banana, the rest wanted candy.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I put on a gorilla mask, white gloves, sport coat and tie*** <---wants to see a pic.
Originally Posted By Sara Tonin Cheesiest Halloween Treat Award goes to..the lady in our neighbor who would drop a few pennies in our bags...I wanted instant gratification, not something dug out of a coat pocket with the fuzz still attached. If you run out of candy turn out the light and go to bed....
