Halloween Books

In some sad, un-Halloween related news, the show Reading Rainbow aired its last show recently. If you’re about the same age as me, you grew up on this show, watching it at home as well as at school. In honor of this great show, some Halloween book reviews. But you don’t have to take my word for it!


Death Makes A Holiday

This book, by David J. Skal, is one of my favorite Halloween books. I read it every fall (or, more likely, late summer) when I start getting anxious for the holiday. It’s a fascinating history of Halloween, from its earliest origins to modern day horror movies. It successfully debunks the urban legend of razor blades in candy (revealing, in the process, the truly sad and sinister case that most such legends stem from, which leaves us with more to fear from immediate family than the stranger in the spooky, dark house). It explores the irony of the Martha Stewart-ization of a holiday that is, if anything, a night of controlled chaos and anarchy. Although the book is basically a history and sociological study of Halloween it is very readable. I can usually get through it in an afternoon. I recommend it to anyone to get into the spirit of the holiday.


Folk Tales

There are many iterations of the fairy and folk tales book. The one I read was found in my grandparents’ attic, with a gray cover, illustrations of the various characters held within dancing around the edges. That particular book is probably long lost, either to a rummage sale or to the fire on the second floor of my grandparents’ house my freshman year of high school. I still remember the stories, though. The Girl with the Yellow Ribbon, The Hitchhiker, tales of werewolves, witches, and ghosts. We would set up a “tent” in the back yard, consisting of a quilt thrown over the clothesline, the bottom corners held in place with rocks. We’d take turns reading from the book with a flashlight, the listeners covered in goosepimples, the reader delighting in the gory or scary ending they would relay. My grandmother was a master story teller and I loved when we could get her to tell us scary stories. She didn’t even need the book. She knew all of them by heart, adding her own creepy details. An afternoon of this, followed by some hot cider and chili and jumping in some leaves, was the perfect afternoon for me when I was young. Actually, it still doesn’t sound too bad!



Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

I had this entire book memorized cold in about fourth grade. That’s how much I read it. I was always the one called upon to recite the stories at sleepovers. I especially loved the ones with a “jump out and get you” ending, where you’d make your voice quieter and quieter as the denouement as the story approached, and everyone would lean in closer and closer to hear, until you leaped forward and yelled the final line of the story and caused a half-dozen girls to jump and shriek and grasp their pillows. Don’t let the fact that this book is marketed toward the elementary school set fool you. The stories are pretty classic modern folk tales and urban legends, and the illustrations are still scary as hell.


Here’s one I vaguely remember and would love to remember more, if anyone ends up reading this blog and knows what I’m talking about, or has better Google skills than me. I remember reading this book in probably 2nd grade, so the book had to come out sometime before 1987. It was a kid’s picture book about two or three trick or treaters who happen upon a mysterious house on Halloween night. They go in somehow, whether invited or not I don’t remember, and end up going through a series of what seem to be different worlds or dimensions. The one I remember most was a desert-like one. In every “world”, just as the kids would think there was no way out and they were lost forever they’d happen upon a door or trapdoor and fall into the next “world.” After the last one, they fall into a giant Halloween party and it turns out all the stuff they’d just been through was a huge, elaborate haunted house. Anyone? I’d love to read or have this book again. Or just know it exists and that I’m not crazy.