The Halloween Tree

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!