When pumpkin-suckin' vampires and other Halloween hoodlums threaten holiday fun, the Halloween Kid, who "loved him some Halloween," keeps the peace. He's so successful, they stay away for years--until the Goodie Goblins show up, and it looks like his skills are so rusty he won't be able to stop them! Who can save the Halloween Kid? While Montijo's plot may be a bit shopworn, his storytelling and stylish graphics more than make up for this. His old-time Western dialect drops gs with abandon and introduces to a new generation such fabulous vocabulary as "varmints" and "[o]oh-wee" as it drawls along. The brush-and-ink illustrations are digitally colored in oranges and yellows and manipulated to present a worn finish, and the 1950s cartoon aesthetic is completed with the Halloween Kid's Lone Ranger mask. "Yee-haw"--er, "Yee-HA-lloween!” (Picture book. 5-8)
