Best Halloween Book Review

Best Halloween Book [1985, Troll Associates, ISBN: 0-8167-0373-6], by Pat Whitehead and illustrated by Stephanie Britt, is a 32-page Halloween-themed children's book.

The Story:

Best Halloween Book is actually an ABC book that follows a little girl named Annie on her Halloween adventure as she decides what she wants to wear for Halloween and then procedes to the pumpkin patch where she meets several scary surprises.

I think it's pretty challenging to write a story that flows well if you are going to flow with the letters of the alphabet. This one did a pretty good job of that, but there seemed to be a lot of focus on being scared in the middle until nearly the end of the book. The pictures aren't all that scary, but the book mentions that some of the characters are not only scared and frightened but terrified.

This book does incorporate several words that children may not know, like ogre and quivers. I always think it's fun to see what authors are going to do with letters like X and Z in an ABC book and this one did a good job with those letters. Each page has the letter in upper and lower case with the vocabulary word beside it at the top and the story continues at the bottom of each page.

My Viewpoint:

Well, if you're going to name something the "best," I'm expecting it to live up to the name. Best Halloween Book is cute and does create a Halloween story that progresses from A to Z, but I wasn't crazy about the focus on being scared through so much of the book. I would call it an average book--it's ok for me but I wouldn't call it the best.