HERE THEY COME!
by David Costello
It’s Halloween night and the monsters gather for a party. Hobgoblins, gremlins, ogres, witches, phantoms, and werewolves—every spook arrives for roasted corn, marshmallows, and cinnamon rolls. They dance and listen to scary stories until an owl swoops by to warn of the arrival of the scariest creatures. No surprise: they’re trick-or-treaters. The monsters flee, but they enjoy the scare and look forward to next year. While Costello’s Halloween story is not unique (see Adrienne Adams’s classic Woggle of Witches, among others,) the target audience will enjoy feeling they are the scariest monsters about on Beggar’s Night. The harvest-hued watercolors move from spot illustrations to double-paged, full-bleed spreads as monsters panic and hide, and the trick-or-treaters march through the party grounds. The rhyming text and too-cute-to-be-scary monsters make this worth a look if you need more non-threatening Halloween tales. (Picture book. 2-6)