TWO CHILDREN'S HALLOWEEN STORIES- THE NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN by Natasha Wing, Illustrated by Cynthia Fisher and WITCHES' NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, Illustrated by Adrian Tans

TITLE: THE NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN

PUBLISHER: Grosset and Dunlap, 1999
READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Little monsters and goofy goblins take center stage in this silly, spooky spin on Clement C. Moore's beloved poem. But what will happen on Halloween when the monsters come face to face with human trick-or-treaters in this fun-filled book by the author of The Night Before Easter?

MY THOUGHTS: Very cute. This is 36-pages and it's very colorful. I love the line, "The wicked witch said, "Welcome. We have a surprise." And the children said, "Run! It's not a disguise!" The book is only as long as the poem.

My favorite image is below.

TITLE: WITCHES' NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN

PUBLISHER: Pelican, 2007

READ FREE: link

MY GRADE: A+

SYNOPSIS: In this spooky parody of Clement C. Moore's famous Christmas poem, the witches are up to their elbows in cobwebs and slime, trying to make sure their witchlings are well prepared for their first Halloween broomstick ride. Featuring witches like Mad-Maud and Snaggle-Tooth-Ruth and plenty of ghouls, zombies, monsters, skeletons, and moldy cellars that will satisfy all Halloween lovers, this good-natured book about these wickedly fun witches will have kids more amused than frightened.

MY THOUGHTS: This is great for adults but too advanced for children in elementary school. They wouldn't know what some of the words meant, and some middle school kids too. The artwork is top-notch and very spooky, with skeletons, graveyards, decapitated head, ect. I'm sure many adults have this in their collection.

My favorite image is below.

TOO MANY PUMPKINS by Linda White, Illustrated by Megan Lloyd and THE LONG WAIT by Budge Wilson, Illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes

PUBLISHER: Oak Live Media, 1993

READ FREE: link

MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Rebecca Estelle has hated pumpkins ever since she was a girl when pumpkins were often the only food her family had. When an enormous pumpkin falls off a truck and smashes in her yard, she shovels dirt over the pieces and forgets about them. But those slimy pumpkin smithereens sprout up in autumn, and Rebecca Estelle finds a sea of pumpkins in her garden.

MY THOUGHTS: This 36- page story is about a woman who chose to make food and jack o'lanterns out of a lot of unwanted pumpkins that grew in her yard. It brought the whole town together. The illustrations are very colorful and I especially love her cat, Esmeralda. I don't use the word "lovely" but this was so lovely.

TITLE: THE LONG WAIT by Budge Wilson

READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: Deirdre did not have a sleek and velvet coat. She did not have a lean and graceful body. She did not walk like a queen with her head in the air. But to the Wilsons, Deirdre was a very special cat. Whenever they came home, she was always there, waiting on the braided mat in the front hall. Then, one year a terrible thing happened.

MY THOUGHTS: This is about a black cat named Deirdre who's on vacation with her family. Her owner opens her cage in the car to check on her and she escapes! After a month, she shows up at someone's home and is returned to her owners. It's not said whether Deirdre enjoyed her time away from her family, just that she hated being in a cage. 

This story had no moral or lesson to be learned. I don't think I've never read a children's book where specific real places were mentioned like they were in here, several places in Canada. I also don't like the faces on some of the family members.

2 CHILDREN'S HALLOWEEN STORIES- BIG PUMPKIN by Erica Silverman, Illustrated by S.D. Schindler and TEN TIMID GHOSTS by Jennifer O'Connell

TITLE: BIG PUMPKIN
PUBLISHER: Alladin, 8/1992
READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: The witch has grown the biggest pumpkin ever, and now she wants to make herself a pumpkin pie for Halloween. But the pumpkin is so big she can't get it off the vine. It’s so big the ghost can’t move it, either. Neither can the vampire, nor the mummy. It looks as if there’ll be no pumpkin pie for Halloween, until along comes the bat with an idea to save the day. How can the tiny bat succeed where bigger and strong spooky creatures have failed? You'll be surprised!

 

MY THOUGHTS: The witch is desperate to take the pumpkin off the vine so she can bake a pumpkin pie. She's visited one at a time by a ghost, vampire, mummy, and bat. They too want pie so they do their best to help her. Then a good time is had by all. Afterward the witch goes right back outside to plant a pumpkin seed for next year! I like that the witch is nice, not evil, though you'd expect her to be in a children's book. And like all, or most, children's books, this was very short and to the point.

TITLE: TEN TIMID GHOSTS by Jennifer O'Connell
PUBLISHER: Scholastic, 2000
MY GRADE: A
READ FREE: link

SYNOPSIS: It's Halloween, and ten timid ghosts in a haunted house have a problem: a mean witch is preparing to move in and scare them away, one by one! Young trick-or-treaters learn to count backwards from ten to one as each ghost flies away to the woods after seeing a gleaming skeleton, a bat black as night, a frightening hoot owl, or an enormous rat, just a few of all the witch's tricks. But one clever ghost, before flying away, unravels the witch's plan! Together, the ghosts rise up against the witch in a big, scary BOO! 

MY THOUGHTS: The witch tries to run the ghosts out by pranking each and every one of them. You can see her discreetly in each scene as she pranks them, which is funny. She succeeds but they get revenge. Love it because I love a revenge story.

My favorite image is below because you can see the witch's bag of tricks.

TWO CHILDREN'S BOOKS FEATURING WITCHES: EXCUSE ME...ARE YOU A WITCH? by Emily Horn, Illustrated by Pawel Pawlak and ROOM ON THE BROOM by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Axel Scheffler

TITLE: Excuse Me...Are You a Witch?

PUBLISHER: Siphano Picture Books, 2002

GENRE: Children's Fiction
READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Herbert doesn't have a home. He doesn't have any friends, and when the weather's bad life is pretty unpleasant. Except for the library -- it's always warm, and there are lots of good books to read. But you can't live at the library! Then, while reading one day, Herbert learns that witches love pets -- especially black cats! Now all Herbert has to do is find a witch .

MY THOUGHTS: This is sweet. It's a 32-page full color children's book about a lonely, homeless black cat named Herbert. He wanders into a library and reads a book called The Encyclopedia of Witches. He learns that witches love black cats most of all. He sets off to find one. He wanders around town, thinking he's spotted one over and over again, only to find out the people aren't witches. He visits the library again and finds a group of "witch-schoolgirls" inside. They love him on sight and invite him to go to school with him. 

My favorite image is below, where they're leaving the library with him.

TITLE: ROOM ON A BROOM 

PUBLISHER: Puffin, 2001

READ FREE: link

MY GRADE: A+

SYNOPSIS: The witch and her cat are happily flying through the sky on a broomstick when the wind picks up and blows away the witch's hat, then her bow, and then her wand! Luckily, three helpful animals find the missing items, and all they want in return is a ride on the broom. But is there room on the broom for so many friends? And when disaster strikes, will they be able to save the witch from a hungry dragon?

MY THOUGHTS: I love this. It's 36-pages, full color with rhyming verses. Being a children's book, it paints the witch in a good light. She and her cat help out a dog, bird, and frog, having misadventures along with way. All four help her out of a horrible situation with a dragon at the end and she gets rewarded with a special broom.

Someone did an animated television movie for this but it's not the 2012 version (the illustrations are identical to those in the book and this version is only 10:19 long) and all the voices are done by the same woman. They changed the word "fries" to "chips." The BBC version that was put onto DVD has different animation and a different person narrates each character.

LOVE'S LEADING LADIES by Kathryn Falk

PUBLISHER: Pinnacle, 1/1982
GENRE: Nonfiction
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Here, for the first time, is an intimate look at the women who write the bestsellers that bring passion, charm, and happiness into the lives of countless readers.

As the Barbara Walters of personal interviews, Kathryn Falk-and avid romantic novel fan herself-has asked intriguing questions of favorite authors, who now tell all about their home lives, their hopeful dreams, and devastating disappointments. Even about their own romantic experiences!

Complete with photographs, facts, favorite recipes, astrological signs, and up-to-date lists of published works-plus others soon to be released-this one-of-a-kind anthology is an absolute must for the more than 20 millions romantic novel fans who find themselves fascinated by...LOVE'S LEADING LADIES.

Authors profiled: link.

MY THOUGHTS: I loved this. Each author got 4-6 pages and there's a mix of both historical romance and contemporary authors. Seems like over half included one of the author's favorite recipes. There's a black and white headshot of every single author except Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, who got an illustration of herself instead. The author called her "reclusive" and said she was a "born-again Christian" who doesn't answer fan mail. We learned that authors Iris Bancroft and Rebecca Brandewyne are MENSA members and that Rosemary Rogers and Shirlee Busbee, two of the biggest authors of the 80s, worked together for a time while Rosemary was a published author. Julie Ellis wears a size 3 US shoe! Author Virginia L. Hart (who apparently goes by the name Ginger) is married to famous country singer Freddie Hart, who died a few years ago.

Parris Afton Bonds is a born-again Christian and here's something odd she said to justify having raped heroines in her books, "I find my approach amusing, because as a tyro at writing romance I found it very difficult to justify sexual intercourse between two unmarried characters and still remain true to my Christian tenets. As a result I often had to resort to 'rape' between my hero and the heroine in order to juggle the sex and romance!"

Barbara Cartland is pretty funny, "That's why I'm selling millions of paperbacks to women who are on Valium because they're having such a rotten time in real life." "I don't like most women," she admits without hesitation. "I can't bare ugly women who sit about doing nothing but waiting to play bridge. All my life I have thought men were something very special. It is a treat to be alone with them. I prefer a dumb man to an intelligent woman." She also calls herself "some sort of British heirloom."

THE OBSERVATIONS by Jane Harris

PUBLISHER: Faber and Faber, 2006 

GENRE: Historical Fiction 

SETTING: Scotland, 1863

MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley - the wide-eyed Irish heroine of The Observations - takes a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella. Bessy is intrigued by her new employer, but puzzled by her increasingly strange requests and her insistence that Bessy keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts. And it seems that Arabella has a few secrets of her own, including her near-obsessive affection for Nora, a former maid who died in mysterious circumstances. 

Then a childish prank has drastic consequences which throw into jeopardy all that Bessy has come to hold dear. Caught up in a tangle of madness, ghosts, sex, and lies, she remains devoted to Arabella. But who is really responsible for what happened to her predecessor Nora? As her past threatens to catch up with her and complicate matters even further, Bessy begins to realize that she has not quite landed on her feet.

MY THOUGHTS: This was strange and interesting but led nowhere, really. Though I liked it, I wouldn't recommend it. It was pretty slow-moving. Timespan is 3 years. Bessy finds employment within Arabella's household. She then finds that former maid Nora died while working there, found dead on the railroad tracks. We're left wondering if it was murder or suicide. The ending, learning what really happened to Nora, was a gigantic disappointment. I didn't see much point in Bessy's mother being in the story physically either. We learn something really foul that happened with mother and daughter a few years before that made me cringe.

The title comes from a journal Bessy finds in Arabella's drawer. Arabella's keeping notes on some in her employ and plans to write a book. She wants Bessy to keep a journal too but nothing ever comes of the planned book. I also don't understand how seemingly out of nowhere Arabella loses her mind near the end of the story. Arabella's a very peculiar person and we got no background information on her.