The Night Before Halloween Book

Found Oct. 6, 2016 on library catalog
2.5
Having just read a Halloween book with the theme The 12 Days of Christmas, I was dismayed to learn this was like Twas the Night Before Christmas, which I didn't realize when I requested it from my library. I thought it was an easy scapegoat to just reword things to a story that had already been written, and wanted an original story, but I actually ended up liking the take on the Christmas story, and how the words were changed to fit Halloween.

It was a good story that monsters decorate their house in preparation of trick-or-treaters coming. That was such an original idea, and most of the time I forgot it was supposed to read like the 12 days of Christmas, because the wording wasn't as obvious. At other times it was clear only a few words had been changed, like "visions of candy corn danced in their heads." I enjoyed the rhyming and really liked a lot of the wording choices and ideas she had. I liked that jack-o-lanterns were set out on porches with care. The lines "So they walked to the house at the top of the hill, which gave all the kids a spine-tingling thrill. They stood on the porch and were ready to knock, when they heard heavy footsteps and a turn of the lock" really set up anticipation for what was to come. It was so cute when the witch said they had a surprise, "and the children yelled "Run! It's not a disguise!" It was disappointing that the house full of monsters had spent so much time decorating and getting food ready specifically for children to come in and the kids ended up running away and didn't even come inside, so the monsters had a party themselves. I liked the parting wish "Happy Halloween to all--and to all a fright night!"

All in all it was a cute read with nice wording. The story was pretty good, but the artwork ruined it for me. It was kind of messy and simple, looked like loose sketches with brushy coloring that sometimes wasn't even in the lines. I definitely didn't like the style of the illustrations. They were just sloppy and reminded me of Sesame Street.