For October, we’re doing books with ‘Halloween’ in the title. I’ve grabbed a bunch from the children’s room. Here are reviews of a slew of fiction books. Mostly picturebooks or easy readers. Can we spot any trends or common themes? (Did that question sound too much like English class?)<\/p>\n

My “Halloween” introductory post<\/a>
\nMy nonfiction children’s “Halloween” post<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dragon Halloween Party: A Story and Activity Book<\/i> by Loreen Leedy (1986)<\/b><\/p>\n

A mother and her dragons plan a Halloween party. The tale is told in verse, and while you’re reading there are a lot of instructions. How to make various costumes, decorations, how to carve a pumpkin. There’s even some recipes. I didn’t like at first that all the dragons were blue. But when the guests arrived, they were different colors. So it started making a little sense to me that all the related ones would be the same color. At the end is instructions for how to make a dragon costume. It’s cute. It’s short. There are things to do if you’re motivated to do them. And, well, dragons are always a bonus.
\n
\n
\nDragon’s Halloween<\/i> by Dav Pilkey (1993)<\/b><\/p>\n

I get the impression that this is a series of books about Dragon. He’s also blue. This book is actually 3 short stories. One involves cute little pumpkins that he turns into a scary mega-jack-o-lantern. Another, he’s invited to a party and decides to go as a vampire mummy witch, but the rain ruins his costume. Aww. And the third, he’s out alone in the woods and there’s a scary noise. It might be that he’s hungry. All in all, cute little stories with a Halloween theme.<\/p>\n

Spike at Halloween<\/i> by Gail Herman (2002)<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

Spike appears to be a green dinosaur. This is probably also a series of books. Not a fan of this one. Spike needs a costume for Halloween and he keeps changing his mind every time he sees something. Red stop sign, yellow sun, etc etc. Then he runs out of time and just uses all the colors he’d gathered to go as a rainbow. In the next one, he keeps dropping his pumpkin so it’s too squashed to make a jack o’ lantern out of. Maybe Spike is typical for the age of readers (6ish year olds) in that he’s flaky and clumsy, but it turns me off!<\/p>\n

It’s Halloween, Dear Dragon<\/i> by Margaret Hillert (1981)<\/b><\/p>\n

This dragon is green. And is dressed up as a witch on a broomstick on the cover. Go dragon! This dragon burns things with his nose. He’s a burninator! The text is written in a Dick and Jane style that I don’t particularly like. The style made the whole story disjointed. Even following along with the pictures, it doesn’t really hang together to make sense as a story. The dragon appears to sprout wings out of nowhere. Actually, the more I think about the book, the more confused I get by the whole thing. Definitely do not recommend this, as cute as the dragon is.<\/p>\n

Alison’s Fierce and Ugly Halloween<\/i> by Marion Dane Bauer (1997)<\/b><\/p>\n

Again, part of a series. But not, this time, about a dragon (or any sort of animal). This one is about a girl named Alison, surprise surprise. This is actually a very interesting book though. In the past, Alison has been a fairy, a princess, a ballerina. This year, she wants to be a pirate. But not just any pirate, a fierce and ugly one. Complete with scar! (Clearly not going for the sexy and\/or gay Pirates of the Caribbean version.) Her parents lament her choice, as well as her grandfather. They fondly remember when she was a fairy, a ballerina, a princess. And her brother laughs at her. Her friend Cindy decides she’s going to be a fierce and ugly pirate too. You get the impression it’s just from the same sense that makes women go to the restroom together. When they go trick or treating, no one appears scared of them. They call them ‘nice girls’. And ‘sweet’. And ‘cute’ pirates. Meanwhile someone declares her brother and his friend in their sad little toilet paper mummy costumes as ‘scary’. It’s not the reception a fierce and ugly pirate wants to get. So feeling rather put out about this, I gather, Alison takes some pebbles in her pocket and chucks them at the front porch of the lady who called them ‘cute’. Which, you know, no big deal. But she feels remorse. And the lady does have a cane, so maybe it’s rather more inconvenient for her to have pebbles on her porch than someone else. <\/p>\n

Alison eventually goes over there and the lady’s all ‘I bet it was those mummies who did this’. Because heaven forbid a fierce and ugly ‘cute’ girl pirate have done it. Alison admits it was her and cleans it up. Cindy offers to help, but Alison refuses the help. And it’s all good and wholesome and stuff. Cindy says next year she’s going to be a dancing fairy princess. Alison, good for her, decides she’s going to be a fierce and ugly troll. Well, when faced with such blatant sexism, one does have to get back up on the fierce and ugly horse and try again. <\/p>\n

It was really a book that made me think. I’m still thinking about it. Do I agree with what it says? Does it not go far enough? And I wonder if the other books about Alison show her putting up with society’s annoying attitudes towards gender.<\/p>\n

Aunt Eater’s Mystery Halloween<\/i> by Doug Cushman (1998)<\/b><\/p>\n

The main character of this one is an anteater. Did you guess that? I don’t know whose aunt she is. But she dresses up as a detective (Sherlock Holmes style) for Halloween. What follows are 4 short stories tied together chronologically into a complete tale wherein she solves some mysteries. A scary monster turns out to be a father who ate too much candy. Oh, but maybe I’d better not spoil the rest for you! Suffice it to say she goes to a Halloween party. There are children in the book, but it does seem to be more of a grown-up party. She dances with a scarecrow. Including the jitterbug and the tango. What kid’s gonna do that? (Unless they’re trying to win America’s Got Talent.)<\/p>\n

Halloween Howl<\/i> adapted by Gail Herman from the television script “The Monster in 3-B” by Suzanne Collins (2003)<\/b><\/p>\n

Hey, is that the<\/i> Suzanne Collins of Hunger Games fame? I think it might be. This is from Clifford’s Puppy Days. I hate Clifford. Almost as much as I hate Pooh. And Scooby Doo. And Marmaduke. And.. hrm, I’m mostly naming dogs here. Anyhow.. itty bitty puppy Clifford lives in the big city and plays with kittens and birds and things. It’s Halloween. And they hear a monster in one of the apartments. It makes strange noises. They find a monster tooth! Turns out the tooth is a shark tooth that belongs to a kid named Shun who also plays the Japanese flute that makes ooeeeoo noises. Have I spoiled it for you? The Halloween connection is flimsy at best. And I’m already getting sick of monsters that aren’t monsters.<\/p>\n

The Thirteen Days of Halloween<\/i> by Carol Greene (1983)<\/b><\/p>\n

This is a ‘Sing-Along Holiday Story’, but somehow I didn’t cotton on from the title alone. A verse, to get you in the proper mood: On the sixth day of Halloween, my good friend gave to me six owls a-screeching, five cooked worms, four giggling ghosts, three fat toads, two hissing cats, and a vulture in a dead tree.<\/p>\n

Each page adds a successive verse and shows the witch main character being inundated by these presents, who interact with each other differently on each day. A cat eyeing a worm hungrily, for example. I quite liked this! This is a Halloween story! No froo-froo about treats and no tricks, no costumes, no jack o’ lanterns. Just some witches and some scary, gross, amusing Halloween items and animals. However, I do have one quibble. On the thirteenth day of Halloween, the main character invites her friend for lunch and gives her<\/i> a present in retribution. But it’s in a giant box and we only have a tantalizing green tentacle and what looks like an elephant’s trunk to clue us in as to what it could be. It concludes ‘guess what’. Wah! I don’t like not knowing!!<\/p>\n

The musical score is provided at the end, for those who don’t know the tune and yet can read music. <\/p>\n

(As I was trying to find the book jacket to include here.. well, I completely failed to find the right one. What I do find is one that has cleary been heteronormalized. It’s now a man pursuing a woman. Whereas the version I read appeared to be two female witches. ‘Friends’ I will note the text said. This new one they look more like ogres. I do not like the change. Though I have not seen inside the book.)<\/p>\n

Clifford’s Halloween<\/i> by Norman Bridwell (1986, 1966)<\/b><\/p>\n

Vintage Clifford here. Not that that’s going to make me like him any better. The first several, several pages are about other holidays and how good Clifford is at those holidays. Red is good for Christmas! And makes a good Valentine for y’know.. Valetine’s. When we eventually get to Halloween, Emily Elizabeth tells us a previous Halloween she was a pirate and they tried to decide what Clifford should be. We get some pictures of Clifford in various hypothetical costumes. He finally went as a ghost. They went to a party. They listened to a ghost story. They went trick-or-treating. This year, she’s going to be a (you totally cannot guess what she’s going to be!) (no, really, you can’t) (feel free to give it a try though) (go on, guess). Highlight the next text to see what it says! She totally wants to go as a fairy princess!<\/font> Never saw that coming, did you? More hypothetical costumes for Clifford. Finally concluding by asking you, the reader, what you think Clifford should go as.<\/p>\n

Very light on content. Big on visualizing Clifford as various things, not all of which relate to Halloween costumes (re: Easter Bunny).<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

More later in Part II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For October, we’re doing books with ‘Halloween’ in the title. I’ve grabbed a bunch from the children’s room. Here are reviews of a slew of fiction books. Mostly picturebooks or easy readers. Can we spot any trends or common themes? (Did that question sound too much like English class?) My “Halloween” introductory post My nonfiction … Continue reading “J’s Take on Fiction “Halloween” Children’s Books – I”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,7,77],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-j","category-review","category-theme-halloween","tag-childrens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/tripletake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}