The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

"A fast-moving, eerie...tale set on Halloween night. Eight costumed boys running to meet their friend Pipkin at the haunted house outside town encounter instead the huge and cadaverous Mr. Moundshroud. As Pipkin scrambles to join them, he is swept away by a dark Something, and Moundshroud leads the boys on the tail of a kite through time and space to search the past for their friend and the meaning of Halloween. After witnessing a funeral procession in ancient Egypt, cavemen discovering fire, Druid rites, the persecution of witches in the Dark Ages, and the gargoyles of Notre Dame, they catch up with the elusive Pipkin in the catacombs of Mexico, where each boy gives one year from the end of his life to save Pipkin's. Enhanced by appropriately haunting black-and-white drawings."--Booklist

I grabbed this entirely out-of-season because I wanted a good audio book, and Bronson Pinchot does a lovely job bringing this to life.

This doesn't rate five stars for me because something about Bradbury's “good old days” schtick grates a little. It goes without saying that there are no female characters or people of color. But I'm pretty sure that accurately reflects Bradbury's subjective experience as a boy in 1920s Waukegan, Illinois, so I get it. Also, the gushing description of Pipkin as the apotheosis of boyhood came off a little strange to me.

But never mind all that - overall, this is a wonderfully evocative tale that artfully meshes the ambivalent nature of our harvest/death festivals with the weird zone between being a carefree child and learning hard grownup truths about mortality.

It can be deliciously Halloween-creepy - the old house, the enigmatic Moundshroud, the titular tree with its magical jack–o'–lanterns. But it is sometimes also seriously creepy, as the group travels through time witnessing stylized representations of historical festivals of the dead, and a ghostly Pipkin is repeatedly embodied and lost in them. (And let me tell you, Pinchot uses some well-placed whispers and wails to reinforce the shivers perfectly.) Then, thinly layered on top is a serious meditation about death and learning to live with the knowledge of death.

And throughout, Bradbury's poetic use of language supports the tone, while making each passage a pleasure of its own, apart from the advancement of the plot.

Definitely recommended for reading with your older kids and highly suitable as Halloween fare or for reading around a campfire!

2.25 stars

Well, that was disappointing.

Let me sum up the positives:
- imaginative and original
- beautiful imagery/descriptive settings
- nice illustrations

Now the negatives:
- too fast. One minute they're in Egypt, next they're in Greece or France or Mexico. It was so rushed
- too many kids, and no character development ( I get it, it's a short story/kids book), but seriously who were these kids!? There was Tom, but what made him special
- Sorry, but why should I care that Pipkin goes missing? Would have loved a little more at the beginning to find a reason to care about the characters
- What the hell was going on? Reincarnation? Are we to believe that even stone figures have emotions and feelings?
- too short.

Overall:
This was a very imaginative story. I loved the idea of it, but was disappointed in the execution. I had to force myself to finish it. I heard there's an animated movie/tv special based on this book. I think it would work better in that format. I'm excited to watch that ( and hopeful it's better).

tldr: great idea, poor execution.

Bradbury's mastery of the English language is on display here as always, but the story itself just wasn't what I hoped it would be and that really hampered my experience. Still, it got me out of a lengthy reading slump, so it deserves kudos for that!

I bought a bunch of audiobooks once, and then discovered that I'm not especially fond of them. I get annoyed with the narrator's voice, or it's too slow, or I fall asleep. It's not the book's fault, at all. This was the last one I convinced myself to listen to (out of guilt for spending money), but no more! One day I'll actually read it, and get more of a kick out of its Halloweeny myths and child-like wonder.