Freak369's Full Review: Erica Silverman - The Halloween House
Several years ago I received “The Halloween House” for a birthday present; normally when my friends buy me books that are something strange, out of the ordinary or often times dealing with death, anatomy or folklore. Everyone knows I am a huge fan of Halloween and when my friends are looking to buy me a present more often than not it’s something revolving around this most enchanting of holidays. I didn’t know what to make of the book when I first unwrapped it; I knew right off the bat that it was a kids book and when I flipped through it I sort of laughed and thought … “and they say that I am losing it …”. That was before I sat down and read it and discovered the charm of the book, since then it’s gotten a lot of use from the brood, their friends and now little Annabelle. Give her anything that rhymes and she’s in hog heaven. This is targeted at kids who are just starting to read on their own; there aren’t a lot of complex words in the book and it will really make them giggle when they go through the rhymes.
The Halloween House
I have to admit this, outside of The Hallo-Wiener and Halloween Night on Shivermore Street, this is one of the cutest Halloween books for kids that I’ve come across in a long, long time. The book is structured in a series of rhymes; each monster, creature or animal featured in the book is there with his or her babies and each of them haunt a certain part of the house. Each of the entries is about five to eight lines so there isn’t a ton of reading involved but what you get is extremely entertaining! One of my favorite passages reads as follows …
In the Halloween house on a bed made of pine,
A mama vampire woke with her little ones, nine.
“Rise” said the mama.
“We rise,” said the nine.
So they rose through the night from the bed made of pine.”
That’s how each of the sections reads; it starts with ten howling werewolves and works it way down to one baby witch. The ending of the story comes when the sun rises the day after Halloween and all the creatures, monsters and animals mentioned in the book vanish. While this might not sound like the most entertaining thing on the face of the earth I can almost guarantee that once you read the story and see how absolutely cute it is, you will want to add it to your library or at the very least check it out of the library to read with kids around Halloween. This is a hardcover book with a suggested retail price of $15.00 but you can find it for a lot less at used book stores as well as online sites that carry used titles.
Now … The Con
Well, actually, it’s not just one con, it’s two cons. Not “con” meaning bad but “con” meaning convicts. That’s what the book is really about. On the cover you see two guys in pinstripe uniforms looking out a window, when you open the book you see them running away from a police office then you see them scooping out the house. They figure that it’s abandoned and a safe place to hide out. Little do they know there’s a plethora of spooky, creepy and haunting things waiting for them. They crooks are never really introduced and there is nothing on the first few pages to explain what is going on, you don’t figure out what the deal is until you complete the book and see them back in their prison cells saying “home sweet home”. To me this is a good thing and a bad thing; kids can make up the story of why they broke out of jail or why they were there in the first place – great for enriching their imagination. The downside is that for younger kids they might not be able to get the concept of filling in missing parts of a story.
The Bottom Line
This really is a fun book to read no matter how old you are. The illustrations really add a lot to the story and younger kids like looking through them to count the baby vampires, monsters, werewolves and bats – just to make sure they are all there. So many Halloween books for kids are watered down and really lack any type of drama so I was really pleased with the storyline of this one, the way it was illustrated and the overall feel of it. It’s not too scary for the younger ones and older kids will get a chuckle or two out of the rhymes. This hard cover book is written by Erica Silverman [“Big Pumpkin”] and illustrated by Jon Agee; the two make a great team on this book and its something that I highly recommend to any parent, teacher or care giver who wants to have a great Halloween book on hand for story time!
The Halloween house, occupied by such creatures as werewolves, witches, bats, and skeletons, turns out to be an unfortunate choice as a hideout for a ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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