About a week and a half ago, I wrote a post about a new October tradition Neil Gaiman is spearheading called All Hallow’s Read.  Basically, you celebrate All Hallow’s Read by giving someone the gift of a scary book.

I’m quite enthusiastic about giving books as gifts, so next week I’m going to gift one of my blog readers with a copy of book one in the Skullduggery Pleasant series, Sceptre of the Ancients.  I personally LOVE this book!  It’s a delicious cocktail of fantastic magic, nasty villains, and dry humor, shaken well with action and topped off with a twist of plot.  It works for adults, YA, middle schoolers, and (upper) elementary kids; and there are lots of sequels (the author, Derek Landy, just published book six) for those of us who can’t get enough!

If you’d like a chance to win, just leave a comment on this post.  You don’t need to provide your mailing address (I can get that from the winner later), but I am curious about who is reading the blog: your title or position, geographical location, what type of students you work with, etc., and I’d also appreciate any feedback you’d like to give.

Then, at the stroke of midnight on October 31, I will consult the spirits for the name of the winner.  Wow, that sounded really dramatic, didn’t it!  But it would actually be more practical if I just closed the comments at 6:00 pm on October 31 and then used a random number generator to determine the winner.  Meanwhile, enjoy a preview of Sceptre of the Ancients.

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

If the “Browse Inside” doesn’t work (apparently it sometimes does, sometimes doesn’t) you can click here to sample it at Google Books.

Happy All Hallow’s Read!