The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury (1971): Candy Apples and Razor Blades...

There are few other people who can write with authority about Halloween, its origins, and its hold on our imaginations than the iconic and legendary Ray Bradbury. Long a chronicler of the childhood sense of wonder and fear, myth and mystery, Bradbury's boundless delight in all things fantastical, innocent, macabre, magical, and ancient is virtually unmatched in American literature. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) is one of the greatest of seasonal celebrations, a perfect amalgamation of a Midwestern reverie and creeping dark fantasy; see also his 1955 short-story collection The October Country.

However, the book I come to praise on this day of days is his 1972 young adult work The Halloween Tree. With his trademark flights of poetic language and dream-like imagery, Bradbury attempts to synthesize the irreplaceable childhood experience of Halloween once and for all. He revels in the sights and sounds and smells of the season, the excitement of ragtag costumes and candy corn, the chill of delicious fear when gazing upon a house such as this:

Illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini

Eight boys join the magnificent Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshround, inhabitant of above house, on a search for their missing friend Pipkin - "the greatest boy who ever lived" - but this search encompasses all of Halloween's primordial history. From cavemen cowering in the dark to the building of the Great Pyramids, through the Celtic festival of Samhain to constructing the gargoyles of Notre Dame, Mexico's Day of the Dead, and more, Bradbury's boys sweep through it all on a wondrous carnival kite shaped something like a pterodactyl. It's a crash course in a secret history often misrepresented in popular culture. Last year I read a comment by a befuddled anti-Halloweener: "Isn't Halloween Satan's birthday?"

The Halloween Tree is an essential read for Bradbury fans, Halloween fans, and lovers of horror fiction. Stellar black-and-white illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini capture the enchanting creepiness of the story itself. I imagine it'd make a good week of bedtime reading for those with kids - or, hell, even for those without - a sweet, ghostly treat redolent of bonfires and pumpkin pie, mummy dust and autumn leaves, a love letter to that perfect Halloween we all of us desire to recapture.

"So," said Moundshroud. "If we fly fast, maybe we can catch Pipkin. Grab his sweet Halloween corn-candy soul. Bring him back, pop him in bed, toast him warm, save his breath. What say, lads? Search and seek for lost Pipkin, and solve Halloween, all in one fell dark blow?"

They thought of All Hallows' Night and the billion ghosts awandering the lonely lanes in cold winds and strange smokes.

They thought of Pipkin, no more than a thimbleful of boy and sheer summer delight, torn out like a tooth and carried off on a black tide of web and horn and black soot.

And, almost as one, they murmured: "Yes."

All These Monster Kids' Books

Halloween has almost arrived. Since this awesome holiday is (usually) about kids, I wanted to share some great books I - and plenty of other folks - loved to read and reread as a child. These are the books that made me the diehard Halloween and horror fan I am today.

Norman Bridwell, most famous for creating Clifford the Big Red Dog, had several books of charmingly-drawn monsters. Monster Holidays (1974) and How to Care for Your Monster (1970) were the best. I mean, the monsters are adorable. Look at Dracula waving, for Chrissakes! Who would not want to open their door on Halloween night and find those folks outside?!

Another fantastically well-illustrated monster book was Movie Monsters (1975). This makeup how-to by Alan Ormsby, who had starred as the most obnoxious theater troupe leader ever in Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1973).

Bunnicula (1979)! A classic tale of a vampire rabbit. Lots of sequels apparently.

All I remember about The Mystery in Dracula's Castle (1975) is that I read it over and over and over. Don't even know if I ever saw the Disney TV movie.

Books like these, found in the kids' non-fiction section of the library, were a treasure trove of horror movie history. In the days before VCRs, much less DVDs and the internet, the only way a kid could see a lot of these movies was to read these books and imagine them in his head...The distinctive orange-spined Crestwood Series has sent many a 30-something dude scouring the net for hours trying to figure out what the heck they were called.

I don't draw like I used to as a kid, but I fondly recall these two how-to books, by illustrator stalwarts Lee J. Ames and Ed Emberley, were staples for the after-school and Saturday hours.

Hope everyone's Halloween is a delight... even if this crazy lady doesn't want you to celebrate it!