An Inclusive Halloween
We may perhaps be a bit past Halloween by this point, but you know, seeing how much time Christmas dominates this part of the year for weeks before December even starts, I don’t see anything wrong with keeping the Halloween spirit going a little bit longer!
I really do enjoy Halloween, even as a grown-up with no need to indulge in trick or treating or other aspects of the celebration of this unofficial autumnal holiday in North American culture. In particular, over the last couple of years as life has been scary enough, I have tried my best to get in the Halloween mood, helping my spouse rig up socially distant candy distribution for trick or treaters, decorating our home with cobwebs, spiders, and ghosts, and watching scary movies. The thirtieth(!) anniversary of the great Halloween Blizzard of 1991, in particular, has put me into a nostalgic mood, not unlike a few others around here.
Like last year, I enjoyed some spooky seasonal comfort food by checking out some recently published works celebrating the season for all ages. I’ll begin with She Wanted to Be Haunted, a charming picture book for younger kids, then move to the middle grade comic The Accursed Vampire and novel The Halloween Moon, before discussing the stylish young adult novel The Scapegracers. Each of these felt perfect for Halloween lovers, both parents and their children alike, and each stressed in their own ways the importance of acceptance and diversity. I have a little more reason to be excited about future Halloweens, as my family welcomes our new child in January! Having someone young to share my favorite holiday with will be a wonderful way to continue our family traditions!
An amusing picture book, Marcus Ewert’s playful rhymes along with Susie Ghahremani’s colorful artwork makes She Wanted to Be Haunted a cute and topical storytime pick for the season. Clarrisa, a cute, cozy cottage finds her floral surroundings and quaint architecture boring and yearns for a few creepy denizens like her parents, a haunted castle, and a witch’s hut, enjoy. Attempting to rectify the situation backfires as spooky clouds only bring more flowers and a horrid stench summons forth the neighborhood pups. For adults, the use of a few fun advanced vocabulary choices (wan, djinn) adds some nice distractions and for kids, the “be yourself” message comes off quite nicely. Just don’t get sidetracked by the logistics of how houses reproduce.
In a strong debut graphic novel, Madeline McGrane tells the creepy but endearing story of Dragoslava and their friends, a group of vampire children spending the centuries hanging out in crypts, drinking blood, and having fun. Even after hundreds of years, though, Dragoslava has a problem- a powerful witch has used her curses to force them into her service, and once more calls open them to do her bidding. Despite their reluctance to drag their friends Etzli and Quintus into this mess, Dragoslava’s acceptance of all the help they can get will prove important as they face not only the witch’s curse but a scary vampire hunter as well.
An intriguing figure, Dragoslava shows that one can still learn more about oneself even after centuries as we follow their story through flashbacks across their past, learning more about their trauma and hinting at a larger world full of hidden details yet unexplored. This format is perfect for sparking the imagination but may be a little frustrating for readers looking for a more linear story.
McGrane’s drawings throughout are expressive, her bold linework creating a dark but upbeat atmosphere. While taking a lot of vampire lore and tropes used to both comedic and dramatic use in such works as What We Do in the Shadows and making them a little more child friendly, McGrane certainly doesn’t defang them either. The effortless diversity created in The Accursed Vampire’s world is a great plus, too.
In this exciting, eerie middle grade novel, Welcome to Night Vale co-creator Joseph Fink pens an affectionate ode to the holiday of Halloween without falling too deeply into the nostalgia adults tend to maintain surrounding the date. I feel that he succeeds in telling an evocative story that will appeal to spooky story loving preteens, while also giving them some things to think about as well.
13 year old Esther Gold, lover of all things Halloween, is an endearing and relatable protagonist, enlisting her Halloween hater best friend Augustin to continue her Halloween traditions in spite of a parental banning of teenage trick or treating. However, something weirder and darker lurks just outside of her perception, but it’s not going to stay hidden long. As a rare full moon rises up over Esther’s suburban southern California neighborhood, the Halloween Queen and her weird and frightening minions are preparing a Halloween Night which will last forever.
Fink infuses the story with a lot of though provoking themes- why some of us might gravitate towards scary things in a world already all too full of them, fears of change or growing up in an uncertain world, dealing with prejudice. That may seem like some pretty heavy stuff to tackle in a fun middle grade fantasy romp, but I feel that these elements do not crowd out the inventive world building. There may be a lot going on in The Halloween Moon, but it mostly comes together smoothly minus a few pacing issues. Fink’s great eye for weird and affecting imagery paints some vivid and harrowing scenes as Esther and her ragtag group, including her most boring adult neighbor and her own bully, find themselves lost in a creepy but beautiful Halloween dreamworld, beset by lost trick or treaters and strange allies.
All in all, a lovely bag of Halloween goodies full of candy bars and skittles (and some candy corn too, if that’s your thing).
A stylish and vivid high school horror-fantasy, The Scapegracers celebrates the mess of late adolescence for those who don’t fit the mold of the conventional — the queer, the spooky. I enjoyed the edginess Hannah Abigail Clarke instilled in their work here, coupled with an effortless inclusivity in creating a vibrant rural midwest that reflects its true state (though I only wish my suburban Minnesota high school had been even a quarter so cool). Clarke, barely out of high school themself when they wrote this, really captures the feeling of high school life, which amazingly felt familiar to me despite being twenty years out. At the same time, the mysterious forces that surround the characters throughout also feel equally infused with the world.
The Scapegracers focus on Sideways Pike, an angry, angsty lesbian witch drawn into the machinations of the school’s popular triumvirate of Jing, Daisy, and Yates to bring some real spookiness to one of their many Halloween parties. At first, we’re not sure to trust the motives of such seemingly stock characters, but Clarke subverts all expectations as Sideways herself draws out their own magical powers, shaping them into a coven while building friendships. I understood that realistically dull feeling of many scenes as characters just hang out around this quaint little town, but at the same time, the magic flows naturally from these characters as well.
As the darker elements of the world begin to draw on Sideways and her newly minted coven, we are hit with quite the cliffhanger which definitely left me wanting more. Though, on the other hand, even if it ended with more history homework, Clarke’s writing would have made me want to keep going.
Halloween may be eleven months away now, but reflecting on these books brought the feelings right back, and even better, these works provide fresh viewpoints, exploring important themes of acceptance and inclusivity that have all too often been ignored in Halloween celebrations, with its rampant use of cultural appropriation and sexist imagery. These works show that one can still enjoy the nostalgia of Halloween, a night celebrating imagination and our uncertain places in the world, without losing one’s empathy.