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If you’ve been counting down the days to sweater weather and pumpkin spiced-everything, your time has come. It’s fall, y’all! I hope this set of Epic Book recommendations will help you and your students celebrate all that October has to offer.
On a Gold-Blooming Day: Finding Fall Treasures
Buffy Silverman’s nonfiction book reminds us that October is more than leaves and pumpkins! Each page is filled with photos that burst with color and life, showcasing the beauty and energy of seasonal transformation.
Although the visuals take center stage, this book’s simple but vivid language shares the spotlight, making it a flexible choice for preschool through sixth grade (depending on the unique characteristics of your caseload).
Therapy ideas and skills to target:
- Adjectives: This book features many compound adjectives formed by pairing a noun and a participle (e.g., “seed-sticking,” “autumn-colored”). If it’s too complex to fully explain how these special adjectives work, you could just point them out to students as a descriptive language tool. You could also provide a list of nouns and a list of participles, and encourage students to mix, match, and create their own compound adjectives. (If they need more pictures to describe, our Fall Scenes are just the thing!)
- Articulation: Fall is full of opportunities to practice initial /f/. If your students are working at the sentence level, you could share this book as a read-aloud, and then have students talk about the photos using the carrier phrase “In fall we see___.”
- Extension: Students may want to go on their own fall “treasure” hunt—and you could even document the adventure with your camera phone and help them create a photo book or digital collage.
On a Gold-Blooming Day is also available as a physical book with library binding.
The Classroom Mystery: A Book about ADHD
October is a great time to explore and celebrate neurodivergence—it’s ADHD Awareness Month AND Dyslexia Awareness Month! This book is from the wonderful SEN Superpowers series by Dr. Tracy Packiam Alloway and Ana Sanfelippo, and it focuses on Izzy, an inquisitive student who has an ADHD brain. (If a book about dyslexia is more relevant for your caseload, check out The Map Challenge from the same series.)
The 2023 theme for ADHD Awareness Month is “moving forward with ADHD”, and this book aligns with that pursuit. It compassionately acknowledges Izzy’s challenges, while also showcasing her considerable strengths.
Therapy ideas and skills to target:
- Discussion skills: A class pet’s disappearing food is the central mystery in this book. Students could talk about whether or not they think it’s a good idea to have class pets! They could also describe the necessary steps involved in caring for a class pet each day.
- Predicting: This book offers several prime prediction opportunities! During a read-aloud, you could pause at key moments (e.g., when Izzy stands up on her desk) and ask students what they think will happen next and why.
- Extension: Knowledge is power! If you have students with ADHD diagnoses, they could do research to learn more about the condition. Or, your neurotypical students could do research to learn how to be better allies on World Inclusion Day (October 10th) and every day!
This meaningful story is also available in paperback format.
As an SLP, I read a LOT of children’s books. And every so often, I find one that’s so unexpectedly delightful, I immediately want to tell others about it. Here is one of those books!
This gem from Jessica Shaw and Pauline Gregory starts off as a silly counting tale about animals trying to grab a cookie—and then morphs into something even better. It will charm preschool and early elementary students, and it’s a great read for National New Friends Day on October 19th.
Therapy ideas and skills to target:
- Articulation: Students with goals for initial or medial /k/ will find lots of practice opportunities in this book! If they’re working at the conversation level, they could talk about what each animal does to try and get the cookie.
- Vocabulary: Although this book is aimed at a younger audience, it’s full of bold verbs like “tussle,” “cower” and “shuffle.” Students could use the illustrations to make inferences about the meanings of any unfamiliar words.
- Extension: The Great Cookie Kerfuffle could be part of any farm-themed unit, or it would pair well with farm bingo, Count Your Chickens, or Chickapig (for slightly older students).
This charming book also comes in hardcover or paperback.
Bat Count: A Citizen Science Story
With Bat Count, author Anna Forrester and illustrator Susan Detwiler have created an appealing picture book that offers tender family togetherness, intriguing science, and an urgent call for conservation.
If you want to give a nod to spooky season without focusing on a specific holiday, Bat Week (October 24–31) could be just what you need—and this book is a fun way to kick off the celebration! It could be equally engaging for elementary and early middle school students.
Therapy ideas and skills to target:
- Compare and contrast: Humans and bats have more in common than you might think! Students could use Venn diagrams to identify similarities and differences between these two species.
- Retell/sequencing: Students could describe the events that take place in the beginning, middle, and end of this sweet story.
- Extension: One week isn’t enough time for all of the exciting possibilities of Bat Week! Students could learn about and participate in their own citizen science projects, watch live bat cams, or even build a bat cave. (If your students aren’t into bats, the New York Times recently published an excellent article building citizen science skills through birding!)
Bat Count is also available as a hardcover or paperback book.
Sloth and Squirrel in a Pickle
October is Squirrel Awareness Month, and October 21st is International Sloth Day! This book joyfully honors both animals—and highlights the power of connecting across differences.
Cathay Ballou Measley’s text and Kelly Collier’s illustrations tell the story of unlikely besties Sloth and Squirrel, who find that their new job at a pickle packing plant is, well, problematic. Elementary students will love following along with their zany adventures!
Therapy ideas and skills to target:
- Fluency strategies: Students who stutter could have lots of fun trying out “sloth speech”—slowing down and stretching out their words in a playful way.
- Personal narrative: Students could share about a time they helped a friend, or a time they became friends with someone different than them.
- Extension: I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a sloth super fan. Maybe your students will be too? The Sloth Conservation Foundation is home to many resources for research and discovery.
If you’d like to add this adorable book to your SLP library, it’s also available in hardcover format.
I hope you’ve find our October Epic Book recommendations to be useful. All of these books are available for free through Epic when you sign up for an educator account, or you could request them from your local library. Enjoy!
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