Halloween with Morris and Boris (1975)

While we're on the topic of Halloween-themed books, here's another one that predates me but which I only learned about through library books my wife checked out for our sons—Halloween with Morris and Boris, written and illustrated by Bernard Wiseman.

Like the Nate the Great books, this series features recurring characters. In this case, the two main characters are Morris the Moose and Boris the Bear, and the rapid-fire humor and running gags in these books are very much in the vein of old vaudeville and comic teams such as Abbott and Costello. In other words, you may find them occasionally tedious—as Morris constantly misunderstands Boris (the comedic foil of the duo) and Boris responds with mounting frustration.

Halloween with Morris and Boris is no different, though in my opinion, it's the most interesting book in the series. Here Boris must explain to his simple friend how trick-or-treating works, to convince Morris to participate. The characters literally stumble into their costumes, but have to swap when people are too scared of Boris to give him any candy. The pair end up being invited to a children's Halloween party, where they bob for apples, play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and listen to ghost stories—before Morris gets frightened of his own reflection and runs away.

Wiseman's illustrations are great, and his limited color palette of orange, blue, and black works surprisingly well. It's fun to think of this odd couple of clowns roaming my neighborhood tonight, trying their best to fit in.

Happy Halloween to you and your loved ones!

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt (1989)

I don't remember reading or even hearing of the Nate the Great books when I was a child, even though the first in the series by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat was published in 1972, almost a decade before I entered kindergarten.

But I discovered and came to enjoy the character through my eldest son, who has enjoyed checking out these stories from the library and even adding some to his own book collection.

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt is, naturally, one we enjoy reading together this time of year.

For those not familiar with the books, Nate is a nine-year-old detective whose friends enlist him to solve various problems—typically a lost item or pet. Nate interviews people and, with his dog Sludge, follows their leads from location to location, gathering clues along the way that eventually reveal where the missing object is.

In Halloween Hunt, a cat belonging to Nate's eccentric friend Rosamond goes missing, and instead of trick-or-treating, Nate spends his evening following the trail of clues—even sneaking into the neighborhood's "old haunted house," where the cat ventures every Halloween.

My favorite part of this short book is Marc Simont's artwork, which is wonderfully atmospheric.

The Day-After Halloween Pumpkin

Our jack-o-lantern enjoys a warm and dry November 1, after spending Halloween evening lit-up on our front stoop, watching over the bowls of candy (which we leave on the front steps while we're out trick-or-treating). 

For the past several years, my eldest son has requested that we model our jack-o-lantern's face on the title character in Nora S. Unwin's 1953 book Proud Pumpkin, which I highlight in this post. 

Here are some of that book's excellent illustrations, showing the "round and bold and glorious" jack-o-lantern as it appeared on Halloween, but also as it was subsequently abandoned and allowed to decay in the woodshed:

We brought our jack-o-lantern inside before we went to bed last night, sparing it a soaking from the forecasted rain shower. 

Still, it will inevitably suffer a fate similar to Proud Pumpkin's. Soon we'll take the pumpkin out to a mound of dirt and brush in our woods, and there it will sit until the shell gradually rots and composts itself, becoming part of the mound, as our other pumpkins have done since we moved here.

Thankful for the small measure of light this pumpkin provided, and overall for another joyous Halloween to share with loved ones. See you next year!

School Costume Parade and Halloween Party (1989)

Halloween festivities, as I remember them, were never quite as joyous when the holiday fell on a school night.

Friday night was the best night for trick-or-treating, of course, because you got the holiday plus a full weekend afterward. Saturday night ran a close second. I remember being in sixth grade and talking with a friend on the school playground a day or two before Halloween, which in 1987 was on a Saturday. I joked to my friend that I might eat so much candy on Halloween night that I'd be too sick to go to church the next morning. We both laughed about it, but when the time came I didn't end up gorging myself on candy.

This year Halloween is on Monday. While the rest of the week will undoubtedly be a letdown, most young students will be thrilled that much of the schoolwork they'd normally be doing that day will get pushed to Tuesday. Instead of students trudging into school wearing the glum expressions typical of Monday mornings, a host of superheroes, ghouls, cowboys, princesses, and unidentifiable creatures will light up the hallways with exuberance. Teachers will line them up for costume parades, and treat them to cookies, candies, and other sugary delights.

My sister shared with me a fabulous video from Video Dotti's YouTube channel. It's a home movie shot at Sandburg Elementary School in Centennial, Colorado, on October 31, 1989. I've rarely seen such a glorious parade of costumes.

Most of the 1980s favorites are there, often multiple times: The Noid, Freddy Krueger (or sometimes just a Freddy glove randomly included on another character), the Karate Kid, Jason from Friday the 13th, Pee-Wee Herman, Ghostbusters, Batman, and more. My favorite may be the floppy E.T. costume seen a couple minutes into the video.

It doesn't take long to notice how much looser the times were, considering the types of costumes and accessories that were acceptable then. The camouflage-clad, rifle-toting Frankenstein wouldn't fly nowadays. Nor would the disfigured, scythe-wielding ghoul.

I'm guessing at least half of the costumes shown in the video would now be prohibited due to weapons, gore, full-face masks, and costumes that restrict movement. From a quick search online for school Halloween costume guidelines, I learned that some schools now even limit the amount of face paint that students can apply. 

Another thing evident in the video is the teachers back then knew how to make the holidays fun. Check out this classic classroom decor, particularly its Halloween-themed bulletin board.

Teachers also knew how to party, especially if "party" meant supplying plenty of sugar in the form of candy apples, cookies for decorating, gummy worms, other individually-wrapped candies, and a smoking cauldron of Halloween punch. Oh, to be a school kid at Halloween!

Halloween 1982

Halloween 1982 was a big event for me.  I was 6 years old at the time and obsessed with The Incredible Hulk.  The previous summer was mostly spent running around the yard with cut-off shorts and no shirt, roaring menacingly at my sister.  But I was small, white, and blond.  Although I sometimes forgot this fact when I was truly in character, it was very embarassing when my dad had his video camera zoomed in on me, knowing that I didn't look anything like Lou Ferrigno.  In fact, one particular video shows me running in front of the camera and, in my best Hulk voice, pausing to offer this explanation to the audience: "I'm not painted green because I didn't have time!"

 



But that Halloween, I didn't want to make excuses anymore.  I wanted to BE The Hulk.  So, my mom found a black wig at the drug store and some green grease makeup.  I put on my cut-offs and a plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves (with a green t-shirt underneath and wadded socks to make my biceps bulge).  And I had the best time that night, carrying my plastic pumpkin bucket, and flexing proudly for the video camera, allowing my dad to zoom in all he wanted.

Looking back at the video, I was still a pretty underwhelming Hulk; the makeup was uneven around my mouth, which just made me look dirty, and though my mom did her best to fix it, the shapeless wig looked like a ski cap.  But it was a special Halloween for me, one of my favorites, and I had a good night trick-or-treating with my older brother (the demon baseball player) and my younger sister (Tweety Bird).  Judging by the size of his treat bag, my brother was expecting a lot more candy than I was.

Tricks! Treats! Gangway! (1975)

This year, the world will be celebrating Halloween without the author of Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree, and a host of other October tales as crisp and inviting as a mound of raked leaves.  While staying at a friend's family cabin last fall, I saw a stack of worn Reader's Digest magazines from the '70s on the nightstand.  The October 1975 issue contained a wonderful essay by Ray Bradbury, a memory from his childhood about preparing for his favorite holiday: the excitement of gathering corn-shucks, cutting pumpkins, threading orange and black streamers, putting in vampire fangs and fastening a cape to his shoulders; and the sadness of realizing Halloween had passed away until next year.  May this story kindle similar Halloween memories from your childhood.

Scholastic Book Club Flyer

Fall was a wonderful time to be in elementary school because it meant the Troll Book Fair was coming. I looked forward to getting the full-color newsprint flyers that announced its arrival and reading through the columns of tiny type and enticing pictures of book covers. (There are some great examples of Troll flyers from the 1980s on this blog.)  There were always several Halloween-themed books to get me through the season. A few books I remember ordering from the fair in the mid-80s were Bunnicula, by James Howe;

Arrow Book of Ghost Stories, by Nora Kramer;

and a set of Ghostbusters books that included 12 collector stickers: The Official Ghostbusters Training Manual and a storybook "featuring the Ugly Little Spud."
Checking the internet last month, I saw a current book fair flyer from Scholastic. It's the same type of flyer I remember from my childhood, filled with dozens of spooky selections to choose from.

Here are links to the rest of the book fair flyers for October, listed by grade level. Flyers for the older grades put less emphasis on Halloween and, therefore, seem a bit drab compared to those for elementary students.

Honeybee (Toddlers-Fours)

Firefly (PreK-K)

SeeSaw (K-Grade 1)

Lucky (Grades 2-3)

Arrow (Grades 4-6)

TAB (Grades 7 and up)