SPOOKY AND THE WIZARD'S BATS
By
A third Halloween story about Spooky, well-told but predictable. Happy with his human family after fleeing from the witch in the earlier books, Spooky the cat is now hounded by bats trying to recapture him; but by stealing the wizard's wand he makes good his escape. Tame but pleasantly enlivened by Carlson's gift for musical descriptions and onomatopoeia (Spooky goes ""pussyfoot, pussyfoot to the bed of begonias. . ."" to wait for excitement, but when the bats fly ""loop-the-loops and barrel rolls and sideslips"" over him, he races ""quickety-paw"" back to the house), and by Glass's soft, stylish illustrations, which catch the essence of our comfortable modern view of Halloween without being trite.