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Halloween Reads @ your library

Caught up in what Dr. Seuss’ Grinch calls “the trimmings and trappings” of Halloween (how is it there’s no Grinch Who Stole Halloween out there)? There are certainly lots of resources both on the shelf and online for recipes and party planning ideas, craft and decoration ideas, and costume ideas  (hello, Pinterest).  But Halloween is also a holiday for celebrating the things that go bump in the night, and there is plenty of both fiction and nonfiction for all ages that either take advantage of or explain its origins and mythologies. Looking for a good Halloween read as the holiday approaches? These certainly aren’t all of the ones available, and there are many excellent titles that aren’t listed below, but here are thirteen (plus one) titles that celebrate the Halloween season.

 

   The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. This is a good choice for reading aloud with your school-aged children.

 

Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie. I know Agatha Christie’s books aren’t horror (mostly) but if you want to curl up with a mystery, you can’t go wrong with Hercule Poirot.

 

Halloween Man by Douglas Clegg. Douglas Clegg is a very talented horror novelist. I haven’t read his books, as his novels can be quite graphic, but this one has also been described as eerie and compelling.

 

The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief by Charles Day. This 2013 Bram Stoker nominee doesn’t appear to be easily available right now, so hopefully you already have it in your collection! It looks like a romance, but in actuality is more of a YA horror/mystery combination.Want a review? Find one here.

 

Hallowed by Bryant Delafosse. This is a YA paranormal/horror title, and I can’t claim to have read it, but I have heard good things about it. Yes, there are plenty of YA paranormal reads, but this one is set right around Halloween.

 

Halloween edited by Paula Guran. This anthology includes both reprints and original stories related to the holiday, including stories from such notables as Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. One reviewer on Amazon noted that the Bradbury story does not appear in the ebook version of this book, as Bradbury was very opposed to ebooks, although I know he did release a book in ebook format before his passing… so I don’t know if that is still the case. It is well worth looking up!

 

Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre edited by Paula Guran. This is NOT the same anthology as the one I listed just above– it is more recently published. While the first one had stories by many of the giants of the genre, this one has a different collection of authors, who cover a wider breadth of the genre.  These include such excellent writers as Maria V. Snyder and Carrie Vaughan as well as authors more solidly identified with adult horror such as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and John Shirley.

 

Black and Orange by Benjamin Kane Ethridge. Black and Orange is also the recipient of a Stoker Award. We reviewed it here, and it got a fantastic review!

 

Halloween by Melanie Jackson. Not every book about Halloween is a scary one. This one tells of the adventures of four ten year olds out trick or treating for Halloween. Set in the 1960’s, this is a book that might be enjoyed more for its nostalgia value (if you were a kid at that time) or for reading with an older child.
Mischief Night by Paul Melnizcek. This is a novella from Bad Moon Books’ series of Halloween novellas, now also available on Kindle. It’s a nice little haunted house story. You can check out our review here.

 

A Hallowe’en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writers Over the Centuries edited by Lisa Morton

Lisa Morton is a Halloween expert who has published both fiction and nonfiction, and this collects some of both, with sources documenting Halloween from its origins to the early 20th century. Certainly, this is a unique collection that will be of interest to anyone who prefers to learn about the historical holiday rather than today’s trimmings, trappings, and trick-or-treating. In the interests of saving space, because Lisa has written extensively on Halloween, I’m going to just list a few of her other titles worth looking into this holiday season: The Halloween Encyclopedia (nonfiction), Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween (nonfiction), and The Samhanach (fiction– and a top pick for 2011 at Monster Librarian, reviewed independently by three different reviewers here).

 

Horrorween (Orangefield Series) by Al Sarrantonio.  Orangefield is a town inhabited by Samhain, Lord of Death.  Other books in the series include Orangefield, Hallows’ Eve,  and Halloweenland. We’re awfully close to the end of October to power through all of them, but maybe you can make a resolution to try them out next year…

 

Gods of the Nowhere by James Tipper. The protagonist here is a disabled teenager, which is pretty interesting, as you don’t find many disabled protagonists in horror fiction. And he has a Latina friend, also an unusual find in horror fiction. It’s been described as a creepy and original take on Halloween. This is not a children’s book– maybe an older teen would appreciate it, though.

 

Halloween Spirits: 11 Tales for the Darkest Night edited by Lisa Morton. I know I said I would only mention Lisa Morton once, but this is an interesting collection of short stories that (mostly) tie in to Halloween,  and are intended to get you into the Halloween spirit.  These are not (mostly) stories about trick-or-treating, which is what we normally associate with the holiday, but, especially if you’re short on time, this book is a nice way to give yourself small doses of holiday excitement throughout the month of October.  The authors include Kealan Patrick Burke, Scott Nicholson, John Palisano, Jeremy Shipp, and Nate Kenyon, to name just a few. It’s also an inexpensive way to get into the spirit– available only as an ebook, it’s just $2.99 at Amazon right now.

So there you have it… a list of all kinds of Halloween reads, for all kinds or readers. Check them out and see if one of them is a match for you! And a Happy Halloween to you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on October 30, 2013 by , Reply

Teen Read Week Giveaway Winners!

I had no entries in the giveaway for Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston.  You still have a chance to win– just leave a comment!

 

The winners for the other three giveaways:

Extremities: Tales of Death, Murder, and Revenge  by David Lubar goes to MusicGurl8192

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs goes to Darith

Reckless and Fearless (books 1 and 2 in the Mirrorworld series) go to Cordelia

 

Email me at monsterlibrarian@monsterlibrarian.com with your address and I’ll get those in the mail to you as soon as I can! Thanks!

 

 

 

Posted on October 24, 2013 by , Reply

Stephen King Goes To The Theater: The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

 

When we first saw the advertisement for The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, we were pretty excited. A collaboration between John Mellencamp and Stephen King has all kinds of potential for coolness. Stephen King is a great storyteller, and for a rock musical in a southern gothic atmosphere, I can’t think of anyone who I’d rather have making the musical contribution than John Mellencamp (to clarify, he wrote the music, but didn’t sing it). The description of the show included the information that this collaboration had been thirteen years in the making. We were very intrigued, and made the tickets to the show our anniversary present to each other.

I am a huge believer in the power of live performance. I love storytelling and I love opera, and once you’ve seen those live, film provides only a pale imitation. I don’t think that is necessarily true of horror, though. Maybe it has something to do with the realism that a horror movie has to have to give you that emotional punch. So I wondered how that would present itself in a musical on stage.

The honest answer is that I’m really not sure whether this lives up to its billing as a collaborative horror musical. The music was tremendous, as I expected it would be, and the acting and singing were fantastic. Both the choreographer and whoever was in charge of lighting deserve awards. But… the plot? Character development? I think Stephen King was taking a nap.

The story is along these lines. In a small town in the South, a rift has developed between two brothers. One brother is an auto mechanic who plays in a local band, whose girlfriend, Anna, has just dumped him for the other brother, a writer who has just sold his first book. Their father, Joe,  meets them at the family’s lakeside cabin to tell them the story of his own brothers as a warning. Decades earlier, his older brothers also turned against each other and both died tragically because of their differences over a girl named Jenna.  Joe’s brothers and Jenna now haunt the cabin, providing commentary and acting out the backstory. There is a creature called The Shape hovering around the edges of events (and often stealing the stage– the actor took his part and ran with it), encouraging all the characters to act on their worst impulses.

The plot is pretty thin, in other words. On stage, sets are often pretty minimal, and that’s the case here. So realism isn’t really an option. You’ve either got to have action or character development to catch your audience. Spectacle, music, and talent (and this show has all three), can carry you pretty far, but to get really invested there has to be movement and change of some kind. And especially with horror, you have to be invested. But we never get to know the characters enough to find them sympathetic, or even care much about their troubles. None of them are particularly likable and their parts just don’t gel together. As a result, the final events, which actually were objectively really horrifying, didn’t pack the emotional punch of, say, the final events of Rigoletto, or Carmen. I feel like the actors made the most of what they were given to work with, particularly the Shape. Mellencamp’s music, played by members of his band, was great, and especially the women had great voices and stage presence (Anna in “That’s Who I Am”, Jenna in “Home Again”, and the boys’ mother, Monique, in “You Don’t Know Me”). Unfortunately, not even lighting that made it look like the actors were dripping in blood was enough to disguise the thinness of plot and character development.

I am likely to buy the musical’s soundtrack (especially as it has Sheryl Crow, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Elvis Costello singing on it), and I’m not sorry I went, because I will be able to easily picture the acting  that went along with the music, but I can’t say that I think either of us think this is a must-see live performance (although apparently many Stephen King fans disagree). It’s quite possible that as a film, set in the South with realistic detail, that many of the shortcomings of the live performance could be overcome… although, most likely at the expense of the Shape’s impact on the characters and scene. You can’t beat Mellencamp’s music live, though, and that, I think, was worth the price of the ticket.

 

 

Posted on October 21, 2013 by , Reply
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