J’s Take on Fiction “Halloween” Children’s Books – II

This is Part II of my reviews on fiction children’s books with the word “Halloween” in the title. As before, they are mostly picture books and early readers.

Introduction
Nonfiction
Fiction Part I

Super Why: The Ghost Who Was Afraid of Halloween adapted by Samantha Brooke from a script by Jennifer Hamburg (2009)

I should get a job adapting scripts for children’s books. So, this was a little confusing brand-wise. At the top of the cover it says ‘All Aboard Reading(TM) Station Stop 1’ and ‘Super WHY’. Because why be part of one series when you can be part of 2?

I had not heard of this television series, but you could rather tell it was from television from the picture on the cover. They look like computer animated round characters. The general gist of the story is that these superhero kids with various abilities like ‘spelling power’ go into a book and change the story. One of the four is scared of Halloween, so they find a book about a ghost who’s afraid of Halloween. Then they make a change so the ghost and everyone else knows that Halloween is make-believe.

Firstly, I’m getting sick of the repeating refrain that Halloween was scary and full of tricks, but now it’s nice and safe and fun! Jeez, people, let kids be scared for a minute, would you? But secondly and most importantly, this team of four superheroes. Seems to be 2 boys and 2 girls.. though why one is a pig, I really do not know. But of course the ‘Super WHY’ for which the series is named is a boy. And while the girls have spelling power and word power, he has the power of reading. So you kind of wonder why you need the other powers at all. The poor pig has alphabet power, the lowest power of all. I want a girl to come along (not a princess this time) and tell them all she has WRITING power and really blow their minds.

Branigan’s Cat and the Halloween Ghost by Steven Kroll (1990)

Okay, this one’s weird, y’all. And I’m surprised it’s 1990. I would’ve guessed about 30 years earlier, give or take a couple decades. It’s one of those books I think I would’ve considered boring as a kid. It looks boring to me now. It’s artwork that doesn’t appeal to me and a lot of text. Not that first impressions are really wrong in this case.

Branigan’s a woodcutter and he has this large black cat. Unlike Clifford, the cat is only a bit above believable size. (And I have seen rabbits on the internet that big!) When he’s holding his cat on his lap, I can totally imagine a real cat being that big (albeit with more fat). And that image is the best in the book. The book’s kinda weird beyond that. So, the cat scares people, for some reason, and the woodcutter has to venture further away to sell his wares and only poor people will buy them, so, like, he can’t make enough money to live. So he decides on the brilliant plan of leaving the cat at home. But it’s Halloween! And the cat is confronted by a ghost. And like, tears out of there. And then goes on a quest. I kid you not! A magical quest! With the help of 3 gifts from an owl. And you can almost guess what those gifts are. A sword, a necklace, and a crown. The cat battles a sea serpent, flatters a lion, and gets past some cat guards to like.. cat royalty. Who give him a magic wand. And then, spoiler alert, he goes back to battle the ghost with the wand. What this story has to do with Branigan, really, I don’t know. What the story has to do with Halloween? Not that much.

It’s just weird.
Best Halloween Book by Pat Whitehead (1985)

I thought this was going to be nonfiction, but it’s not. What a name though! Just look at all the competition it has on the Triple Take reviews alone! I’m going to tell you; it’s not the best Halloween book. It’s an alphabet story, starting with ‘Look at Annie. Annie is Afraid.’ Cuz Annie and Afraid start with A, get it? Annie is afraid of all sorts of Halloween things that start with alphabetical letters of the alphabet. But by I, she’s dressing up hypothetically as an Indian princess. The costume she does choose is a Monster. A Nasty Monster. An Ogre. And she scares other people. Until finally, Z… Zap! She takes the mask off. Yea, um.. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

I guess if you’re into alphabet books that tell a story, and you’re looking for a Halloween one, you could do worse. But I should note that Indian princess was not the sort of Indian princess who wears a sari.

The Halloween Party by Lonzo Anderson (1974)

This is another weird one, though not as weird as Branigan’s Cat. In this story, Faraday Folsom, who must one day grow up to be a mad scientist with a name like that, is dressed up as a ghost and on his way to a Halloween party. At an artichoke farm. Ooo-kay. But he’s distracted by flying witches and follows after them. They’re going to a party full of gremlins. He spies on the party for awhile. The gremlin kids play hide-n-seek with an ogre kid. Tediously, I might add. And they spot him! (Eventually) He escapes being eaten in the stew by magically conjuring up a bat stew. How he did this is never, ever explained. Is he a wizard? No. A witch? No. Does he have a magic stew-producing amulet? No. He just.. chants and one appears. Some Mommy gremlin gives him an Arab scarab (I thought scarabs were Egyptian, but what do I know?) and then he flies home on a witch’s broom and there’s much antics about the gremlin kids wanting a ride, and the big ogre kid wanting one. And anyway Faraday Folsom finally makes it to that artichoke farm and the party. But he never finds the scarab in his pocket. So was it real, or wasn’t it?

And who cares?

Trixie the Halloween Fairy by Daisy Meadows

I was saving this for last. I guess because I was most interested in reading this one. I’ve seen the fairy books go in and out of the library through ILL. It’s a whole (read: long) series of books about various fairies. Serena the Salsa Fairy, Whitney the Whale Fairy, Sadie the Saxophone Fairy, Pamela the Pickle Fairy. (Okay, I made one of those up.) It goes on and on until it’s ridiculous.

So, never having actually read one of these before, I read about Trixie the Halloween Fairy. And I will give them (small) points for the name. It’s a good name. These two girls hang out with fairies all the time. They’re getting ready for Halloween. And they’re totally dressing up as… *drumroll* …. fairies! These girls have no imagination whatsoever. At least they’re not princesses.

But ohnoes, the evil Jack Frost (yea, Jack Frost! What the frell?) and his goblins (his what now?) have stolen the magic candy that keeps Halloween alive (um wha?). The book is divided into three stories, where the girls try to reclaim the lost candy before the goblins do. Because if someone without Halloween spirit eats any of the candy, well.. dire things will happen!

Recover the chocolate or the costumes will be no good. Recover the candy corn or the treats will be bad. Recover the caramel apple or um.. like all the Halloween spirit is gone.

The candy corn in particular gave me trouble. Was that candy corn singular or plural? It’s described as being in a glittery wrapper. How often do you see candy corn in a wrapper? Especially if it’s one kernel!

So the plot was really dumb. Yea, okay, it’s a kids book. But the writing drove me up a wall. There were dialogue tags everywhere. As if the little kiddies reading the book couldn’t figure out a question mark meant a question.

replied, yelled, asked with concern, confessed, suggested, assured, exclaimed, explained, complained, responded, whispered in disbelief, responded, noted, declared.

And that’s just from 2 short chapters in the first story. When they actually ‘said’ something, they couldn’t just say it. They had to say it while doing something else.

said, as they climbed the stairs | said, giving her friend a knowing look | said, carefully lifting up a sparkly set of wings | said, pointing out the window | said, glancing around | said, pulling a scarf from her pocket | explained, pulling the door open | complained, shaking her head | said, pointing to a woman carrying a straw basket | said, pointing to a nearby shelf

On top of that, the girls are always looking at things, and noticing things, and realizing things. Very passive writing.

Makes me realize that, seriously, anyone can write a book. Or a wildly popular children’s series! Without actually having to know how to write. (And without actually having to know that previous sentence was a sentence fragment. And so was that last one.)

Getting past that, the girls go out trick or treating alone! Alone! In the ‘inky night’! I don’t know how old they are, granted, but if you’re old enough to be trick or treating alone then you’re old enough to be told to drag along a younger sibling/cousin/neighbor’s kid. So I don’t think they’re that old.

And then, and then! They totally eat trick-or-treat candy without having it inspected by a parent or legal guardian!

Dear readers, this is not our Halloween anymore. What happened to the Real Fear ™ of predators and evil-doers who will use Halloween to kidnap and/or poison your children? Not to mention the masks cutting off your peripheral vision and the dark outfits that mean you’ll be hit by a car!

Then they go to a town Halloween party and play musical chairs. Because musical chairs is the traditional Halloween game.

I am never, ever, ever, never buying one of these fairy books for any kid. Ever. Not if this is a representative sample.

Daisy Meadows is the pen name of a group of 4 writers. So it’s possible only 1 in every 4 books is like this. But I’m not putting money on it. Literally.

—

I shouldn’t end on such a low note. And I do have a Rugrats book here I could do. Technically “Halloween” is in the subtitle. And I did like watching Rugrats once upon a time. (I was far too old for it and did not have young children, but it was a good show!) But I’ve just had a glance inside and.. meh. I don’t have the energy.

So, to sum up.. books with “Halloween” in the title, as a general rule, are not very good. And I don’t even have to specify children’s books, because almost all the “Halloween” books out there are children’s books.

I think I will go read The Candy Witch now.