31 Days of Halloween - Day 31

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

Alfred A. Knopf. 1972


I've written before about how Halloween just isn't Halloween without Ray Bradbury rearing his head somewhere. This year he came in the form of a revisit of his classic YA novel. On Halloween night a group of costumed boys finds themselves being towed along by the sinister Clavicle Moundshroud as he takes them through time on a tour of human's history with death and mourning. All the time they are chasing their imperiled friend culminating in a Faustian deal to save him.

Slight as a story, The Halloween Tree, is one of Bradbury's tributes to eleven year old boys, written as only he can write it. This edition comes with suitably seasonable illustrations by Gris Grimly. If you've never read it before, you really must.