On his way home from trick-or-treating, a little boy finds himself “On [a] winding road, on this windy night, / Clouds hide the moon— / and / in / creeps / fright.” To rhyming couplets, he makes his way through a ghostly wood and a haunted field presided over by spooky clouds and filled with scary sounds. The refrain—“CRACKLETY-CLACK. BONES IN A SACK. / THEY COULD BE YOURS—IF YOU LOOK BACK”—propels the boy and the narrative, with each iteration growing in font size. Once home, the boy realizes the crackling skeletons were cornstalks, the severed heads merely pumpkins. But from the kitchen comes a sound... Bates supplies digitally colored pen-and-ink spreads, thick hatching emphasizing shadow. There is a disconnect, though, between text and illustration; the former suggests real menace, which the latter does not completely dispel, making for an uneven ending. (Picture book. 3-6)
