The Skull

 The Skull by Jon Klassen, 105 pgs. 

I love this author's work and illustrations and this book was really surprising. I grabbed it for my kid to check out, thinking we would read it together, but she ended up reading the whole thing all by herself and really liked it. It's a strange book and it doesn't quite end the way you imagine it will. In an author's note at the end of the book, Klassen writes that he was in a library in Alaska, waiting to give a speech and happened upon a book of Tyrolean folk tales and read quickly through one about a skull. The story stayed in the back of his mind for so long that when he finally decided to do something with it, he couldn't remember the title of the book or the story. He wrote to the librarians there, giving them what details he could recall and they found it for him easily ("Librarians are very good at that," he writes). Here, Otilla, the main character, finds a skull that wants to remain that way, instead of being reunited with its skeleton. Otilla helps out and makes a new friend in the process. It's a little dark and quirky but not at all frightening and would make a good addition to Halloween storytimes for older kids. 

The Halloween Tree

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury  145 pp.

This is the novelization of the script Bradbury wrote for an animated version of the story for Chuck Jones which was never produced (an animated version of the story was produced in the 1990s). A group of young friends meet to go trick-or-treating but Pip, one of the gang has taken ill and is unable to participate. Pip tells his friends to go on without him and directs them to the "Halloween Tree" which is behind the obligatory creepy old house. There they meet the mysterious Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud who takes the boys on an excursion to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Celtic Druids, Medieval France and the Notre Dame, Dio de Los Muertos in Mexico, and the Catacombs. It is at the catacombs where the friends must negotiate with Mr. Moundshroud for the life of Pip. Bradbury's storytelling and his lush descriptions make this a delightful, if dark story. My only quibble is Bradbury's historically inaccurate depiction of the Celtic festival of Samhain as being named for the God Samhain. 

A Night in the Lonesome October

A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny, 280 pages

Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October follows a series of literary characters and archetypes as they scramble about the London of Jack the Ripper towards a mysterious goal, as told by his dog, Snuff. Examples include: Doctor Frankenstein, druids, witches, Dracula, and Elder Gods. There is not much I can say beyond that without giving away key twists of the plot. The accompanying illustrations, by Gahan Wilson, are highly stylized and add an endearing touch to the novel.

No Such Thing as Ghosts

No Such Thing as Ghosts by Ursula Vernon  201 pp.

This is the fifth book in the "Dragonbreath" series. Danny Dragonbreath still has not learned to reliably breath fire although he can manage a tiny spurt in times of stress. It is Halloween and Danny, his friend Wendell the iguana, and a crested lizard named Christiana are taken out trick or treating by Mr. Dragonbreath. Wendell is dressed as a Hydrogen Atom, in a costume created by his mother out of pie plates. His costume is so lame all he hopes for is "pity candy." Christiana is outfitted as a Salmonella Bacteria. And Danny...is a vampire. While out collecting candy they meet up with Danny's nemesis, Eddy, a komodo dragon and a bully. Eddy and his cohorts dare the threesome to go to a dilapidated old house to trick or treat in hopes that when they run away the bullies will take their candy. Danny and his friends get locked in the house and have a variety of scary and ghostly experiences. This book is just as goofy as the previous ones in the series (somehow I missed #4). Vernon's humor is a bit off the wall but she manages to introduce topics you don't normally see in kids' books, like Occam's Razor and interviewing a ghost about its "existence postulating an afterlife" and "the constraints of the visual and physical manifestation." I like this series.