Book Review: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

For all you long-time readers (WHICH YOU ALL SHOULD BE), you might remember last Halloween I ended up scrambling for a last-minute book for the scary season, wishing there was something to read from Ray Bradbury besides Something Wicked This Way Comes, only to find out afterwards that he had a book called The Halloween Tree. We've been waiting a whole year, but finally it gets its place in the sun, RIGHT HERE (Mick Foley voice) on the blog!

Now...let's set some expectations.

It turns out that this is actually a children's book (I mean, a children's book about Halloween? What gives?!?!). I'm not a huge fan of reading children's books and usually try to avoid them. But then again, most Robert Heinlein books could be considered children's books (maybe not Stranger in a Strange Land, but still) and those are great. As is the aforementioned Something Wicked This Way Comes, also by the great Ray Bradbury. So, I was undaunted in finishing this book, despite the full-color illustrations in each chapter.

So what's it about? A group of kids in the midwest (I'm assuming it's the 50s or 60s - I didn't look up the publication date) goes trick-or-treating, finds the spirit of Halloween at the creepy house in the neighborhood (as well as his Halloween tree), and travels across time to look for the beginnings of Halloween, as well as a friend of theirs who didn't make it to trick or treating. They travel to caveman times*, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Mexico, and even England**.

* Can you get cancelled for calling it "caveman times"? Also, I know we still refer to our ancient ancestors as "cavemen" because of all the cave paintings and such, but I always wondered, what if they painted EVERYTHING, and the only stuff still standing thousands of years later are the caves? Would they think we're being reductive by associating them only with caves? As we said in the 90s, things that make you go hmmmm.

** England, but no Ireland - kind of an unexpected choice. Yes, both places had druids, and Halloween is pretty much a druidic holiday, but considering there's a lot more remnants of druidic culture in Ireland I always thought of Halloween as an adaptive Irish holiday.

The events are interesting, and the writing is spectacular - Bradbury had a great way of describing the dying landscapes of autumn - but the problem is the plot. I have no idea why anyone in this book did anything that they did. Again, this is a children's book primarily - the target audience is probably just happy being along for the ride - but as an adult it was very confusing.

So, after all that hullabaloo from last year, I can only give this book five out of ten hot dogs. Maybe next year!