Kids invited to Spooktacular event at Hoover Public Library

The Hoover Public Library is inviting kids to a Spooktacular event Friday, Oct. 25.

This year’s annual Halloween event will focus on ghosts and have a generally spooky vibe, said Justin Banger, a children’s librarian who is coordinating the occasion.

Kids are invited to dress up in costumes and visit stations spread throughout the library for a variety of activities from 7-9 p.m.

The theater level of the library will be set up as The Addams Family mansion. Library employees will be dressed up as the Addams family characters including Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, Lurch, Uncle Fester and Thing, and will be leading kids in several activities, Banger said.

The fiction department will be decorated like The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, and the children’s department will be run by Scooby-Doo and the Gang, with a mystery door maze and “Boot, Scoot and Scooby Dance Party.”

The Library Plaza will be set up as the “deep, dark woods” that are common in fairy tales. The stage will be decorated with an artificial campfire and a storyteller will be telling ghost stories while library employees serve campfire snacks.

The adult nonfiction department will feature “Ghostbusters,” and a station for airbrush tattoos.

Last year’s “Nightmare Before Halloween” event drew more than 1,400 people, about 200 more than ever before, Banger said. The library was decorated with themes from movies directed by Tim Burton, such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”