THE HALLOWEEN PARTY

Adrienne Adams' dark pages, dimly lit by moonlight or the glow of jack o'lanterns, have some of the eerie grace of her Woggle of Witches (KR, 1971) -- though the fuzzy little gremlins who join her witches here are far too nursery-cutesy in their ugliness. But this time the story is too weak to fly, even on a magic broomstick. It's all about how Faraday Folsom -- dressed as a ghost and en route to a Halloween party at the artichoke farm -- stumbles across a forest celebration of witches, gremlins and ogres and just misses being dumped into the stew pot by chanting an impromptu spell that sets the pot boiling with fantastic bat stew. Before hitching a friendly broomstick ride to the artichoke farm, Faraday chats with a gremlin mother who tells him, ""It's a pleasant surprise to get to know you. I've always heard that humans were fierce and cruel. I want my children to grow up without fear. I'm glad they've met you"" -- so that Faraday will be the only kid who still insists at the end that ""It did happen.