 with me when Spooktober ends. Hello everybody, E here. Welcome to our first review of Spooktober. I guess you could consider Fantastic Land the first one of that, but that wasn't an all the way positive review. This is an all the way positive review, so we're gonna jump right into this thing. We are reviewing the Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. It has one of the best covers ever. I don't know if you can tell or not, probably not, but if you look it up online, the skull is made up of a money, a money, a money, dollar dollar bill, y'all, a mummy, a witch, a devil, all that stuff, the pumpkins and the, as a gorilla, there's a hobo, there's a skeleton, skeleton, skeleton, because our main character's name is Tom Skelton, and I always get it confused, like Jack Skellington from a nightmare before Christmas, right, yeah, whatever. So Tom Skelton is a little boy, lives in this town with all of his best friends, and they all have a mutual friend named Pip, and Pip isn't feeling so great this Halloween, and the boys wanna go trick-or-treating anyways. They want to, Pip doesn't feel like it, but Pip ends up going out into the night anyways, and then the kids go on an adventure. First, they meet Mr. Moundshroud, who is the owner of the creepy old house in town, and also the proprietor, if that's even the right word, of the Halloween tree, which is a tree full of pumpkins, so pumpkins right there. Let me see if I can actually find the illustration. This version of the book is illustrated. Yeah, so here, that's the house, and that's the Halloween tree right here, but the Halloween tree, instead of apples and whatnot on it, it has actually the jack-o'-lanterns on it, and the faces are all lit up. Very cool imagery. But the coolest part about this book, and what makes me love this book so much, is this book is to Halloween, this is an SAT question, just kidding. This book is to Halloween, but a Christmas Carol is to Christmas. That's what I love about it. It shows the, not the true meaning of Halloween, but it shows the spirit of Halloween, but it also gives you a history of where Halloween came from, where it stemmed from, all the different cultures, and how Halloween evolved over the years. I mean, you end up in Ireland for the, what is it, the fall harvest. You have Egypt for the day, I don't know if it's Days of the Dead, but it's around that time there. You have Mexico for Dia de los Muetes. I probably said that wrong. Oh well, I'm sure Max and Vivian will let me know down there in the doobly-boot. But this book is fantastic. I know a lot of people, especially more adult-oriented horror fans, do not like this book. They think it's overwritten. They think the language is too flowery. I think the book is the perfect balance of prose and poetry kind of deal. It is a bit overwritten, but I think that's the point. There's a lot of beautiful language in here. So if you're not showing up for beautiful language, don't show up for this one. But the main thing here is the history of Halloween. Showing people that Halloween is just, is not some, like in the movie Hocus Pocus, talking about Halloween was invented by candy companies. No, it wasn't. Halloween has actual historical relevance. All Hallows Eve and all that stuff. I enjoy reading this with my kids, especially with my oldest, Dan. He's grown up listening to this story and he's come to appreciate Halloween for not just the trick or treating. In fact, Dan doesn't even trick or treat anymore. Chris is the only one that's gonna be trick or treating. Last year was Dan's, no, the year before last was Dan's last one. And that was Dan's choice. Chris, Chris is still all for it. In fact, this year, Chris is going to be, I think, Miles Morales, Spider-Man. So the kids love Halloween. Chris doesn't too much get into this book because of the flowery language and because some parts confuse him. But Dan is all about this book. We read it every single year. Ever since I think Dan was seven or eight. Basically, we try to start with both kids. We try to start him around seven years old. Chris was turned, well, seven this year. He's six last year, but we tried a little bit earlier and I don't think, even this year, I don't think he quite got it. But we still had a lot of fun reading it. I have a lot of fun reading it and that's either reading it to your kids or reading it for yourself is fine. It's great and I highly recommend that. But if you want a really, really good, the best experience possible is the audio book that narrated by Bronson Pinchow. And yes, that is bulky from, was it Perfect Strangers? Was it bulky and laddy? I can't remember. But if you guys, and you guys remember that show, Bronson Pinchow also does the audio book. He does plenty of audio books, but he also did the audio book reading of Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. But have you guys read The Halloween Tree? This is my favorite Halloween story other than Gregor Zane's The Riggle Twins, which is in the first Bad Apples horror anthology that Corpus Press put out. I have a story in there also, but don't worry about mine or anybody else's just read Gregor's. That's the best short story, Halloween short story I've ever read. But yeah, this one. Have you guys read it? If you have, let me know. If you did not like it, let me know why you didn't like it. Chad, I know why you didn't like it. Chad Lusky's not a big fan of this. I think you gave it two stars, and that's cool. It doesn't bother me a bit. But if you didn't like it, let me know why you didn't like it. If you liked it, let me know why you liked it. If anybody else out there has a tradition of reading this book or other books for Halloween by themselves or with their family, let me know all that down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been a Spooktober review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye. That thing is hot, y'all. Oh, this is great. It's a lot of dirty. Oh, it is still like 80 degrees here in Central Alabama. Woo, lot.