The Halloween Tree ~ Ray Bradbury
This was a wonderful book to read aloud. My wife and I regularly choose a book for bedtime reading, and this time we picked a book she has owned for many years but never read. It has splendid illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini, but the real delight is in Ray Bradbury’s love and mastery of words, always original, always fresh.
The Halloween Tree tells the story of one Halloween night in a small mid-Western town, and follows a group of young boys as they discover to their grief that Pipkin, one of their most beloved companions, is ill and can’t join them in their adventures that night. They are all dressed in various Halloween-themed costumes as they go out ‘trick or treating’. But they encounter a very unusual reception at an old mansion where they are greeted by a sepulchral old man who challenges them to trick, rather than treat.
His name, he announces, is Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud. Just let that roll over your tongue a few times: Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud!
Moundshroud reveals a vast, ancient tree behind the house, its branches full of hundreds of grotesquely carved and lit pumpkins. From there, he leads the boys on a fantastic adventure through time and space to uncover the origins and meaning of Halloween: how we deal with death and our knowledge of it; how not to be fearful of it; and how to celebrate it.
Moundshround leads them to Ancient Egypt and its pyramids and mummified bodies; to Druidic Britain and the terrible god Samhain; to Medieval Paris and the gargoyles of Notre Dame; to modern-day Mexico and the Day of the Dead. The boys (and ourselves) learn a great deal, and throughout they try to discover the fate of Pipkin, whose life, they now understand, is in great peril.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Bradbury’s writing is rich and glorious, and as I say, a real delight to read aloud.
