OLD DEVIL WIND
by Bill Martin & illustrated by Barry Root
A nicely spooky cumulative Halloween tale that begins: ``One dark and stormy night Ghost floated out of the wall and he began to WAIL. Stool said, `Ghost, why do you wail?' Ghost said, `It is a dark and stormy night and so I wail.' Stool said, `Then I shall thump.' '' By the time the wind comes to ask the witch why she's flying around the house, the cumulation—including ``Candle flickers/Fire smokes/Window rattles [and] Owl hoots''—has mounted to ten for the wind to blow away (``and the WIIIINDOOOOWWW and the FLOOOOOOOR and the DOOOOOOOR...and they didn't come back till HALLOWEEN NIGHT!'' The mounting cadence will be splendid aloud; kids will begin to chime in on the first reading. Root's dark, swirling paintings of the thoroughly haunted house, lit with a ghostly glow, are right in the proper spirit. (Picture book. 3-8)