Kimber the Magnificent here. I’m doin’ my tornado tail-waggin’ thing today. Know why? Cuz today’s one of my favorite kinda days! It’s a Guest Post Day with an indie author!

So today’s your Bow-Wow Day! Yes siree, Lassie! In fact, today’s guest post by children’s book author Raven Howell features something near and dear to my heart: Food! Oh yeah. Like, cookies! (Don’t tell Mom, okay?)

So saddle up and get ready to chow down, Toots! Let’s ride!

Cookies With Bookies

By Raven Howell

Ever eat a Monster Cookie? No, not a “monster” as in huge cookie, but a Monster Cookie. If you love a thick and chewy cookie, then the Monster should be on your cookies-to-bake list. Although recipes may differ slightly, the pre-requisite of Monster cookies are peanut butter, oats, and M&M’s. The rest of the ingredients are pretty much standard: butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, salt, baking soda & powder, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I bake Monster Cookies several times a year. During the holiday seasons, it’s fun giving them appropriate decorating.

Add some goofy monster candy eyes on Halloween. During November’s Thanksgiving season, stick in candy corn around a portion of the cookie sphere to create turkey “feathers”, then add white chip eyes and a butterscotch chip for the “nose” to create a gobbler.

My new children’s book, Santa’s Slip Up, features several fun and monstrous characters such as bats, witches, and black cats. You can find cookie cutters for all of those characters to use in your baking. I’ve been sharing easy kid-friendly recipes and cookies at my book signings and story time.

Ghost Cookies are popular with both children and adults (my book features a ghost nibbling toast!). If you’re looking for a peanut-free recipe, this is it. Plus, they’re opposite of Monster Cookies. Ghost Cookies are thin and crispy. Hint: add a splash of milk in your dough and bake at a higher temperature.

For Ghost Cookies, use your favorite sugar cookie dough, roll it out thin. Cut out dough ghost shapes. For a playful twist, use a flowery tulip shape. Cut it out and then turn it upside down so that your flower blossom becomes a ghost figure in a sheet.

You don’t have to bake these cookies long at all. When they get browned along the edges, take them out of the oven. While still warm, add white chocolate wafers for eye whites, and then regular brown chocolate chips in the centers for eye interiors. Use a touch of frosting or icing as glue if the eyes don’t stick.

You’re welcome to frost or ice the entire ghost white first, after it’s cooled, but personally, I find a sugar cookie sweet enough and these cookies are still adorable without the extra sugar coating on top.

As the days grow shorter, the nights longer, and temperatures drop, I hope you find time to settle in with a good book – and some monstrously yummy cookies. Cookies and bookies!

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Raven Howell is an award winning author and poet of several children’s picture books. Her poems appear in children’s magazines such as Cricket, Highlights for Children, HighFive, Ladybug, Jack and Jill, and Fun for Kids.

She enjoys presenting children’s writing workshops, visiting libraries and schools, and serves as Creative and Publishing Advisor for RedClover Reader. Raven writes a column for Story Monsters Ink magazine, The Book Bug.

She’s also the author of Santa’s Slip Up, a children’s book with a holiday twist.

The 4-1-1 on Raven’s book, Santa’s Slip Up:

It’s the night of Halloween. Spooks, spiders and skeletons abound, the full moon glows – so who’s cheering, “Ho, ho, ho!”? Apparently, Old Saint Nick has come to town. Find out how a sticky situation is averted with a bit of humor in this holiday mix-up, and a new winner is celebrated at this year’s Halloween parade!

For fans of Room on the Broom and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.