I read Fahrenheit 451 in the 7th grade, and I hated it. I had no idea who Ray Bradbury was, but he was a terrible writer in the opinion of this idiot twelve-year who assumed that R.L. Stine was the greatest living American author. The book was slow, and Bradbury wrote paragraphs where a sentence would suffice. I understood the social commentary, but there was nothing profound or novel about the idea that books were good and tv was bad. I was going to enjoy both, thank you very much.
Obviously this was art wasted on a simple mind.
Some decades later, I am here to tell you that not only was Ray Bradbury a pretty good writer, but he might actually be my favorite author ever. And, because it’s October, I want you to know that he wrote the best bit of American literature ever written about Halloween:
Something Wicked this Way Comes
Green Town, Illinois is the idyllic slice of Americana imagined by people who believe there was ever a Utopian era in American history. The imagined childhood of our protagonists, James Nightshade and William Halloway is a surface level invitation to the same nostalgia we all suffer from, contented and sepia tinged. This is the hook Bradbury uses to entice readers into this assumed safe space, perhaps a comforting read, and definitely not a trap to open yourself to your own inner existential dread.
It’s October, the best month of the year, nearly Halloween, a time for lighthearted fun. And then a surprise circus rolls into town, and what could be better than amusement rides mixed with free candy? For the residents of Green Town, anything, anything would be better. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show (totally not a menacing moniker) arrives without much warning and the town is swept away in the fantasies the traveling circus offers. What begins as simple fun quickly becomes more ominous as the fantasies become more enticing and the price for fulfillment rises to unimaginable prices.
At its heart, the story askes all its readers, “What would you pay to have what you most desire?” And Bradbury drives this point by making the townspeople’s desires extremely relatable. Sure, we all want to be wealthy or famous, but we also all want to be loved. Not many of us are eager about aging or facing the inevitable end, and an offer to fix any of that would be hard to resist. Every character is tempted throughout the story, and many fall victim to these very human needs and desires. So human are these needs, in fact, no one character overcomes the temptations without the support of others. No one person is above their own nature. It’s a heady read, but also loads of fun.
The story’s main villain is Mr. Dark, in whom Bradbury reimagines the devil himself as the rogue always lurking in your shadow, nipping at your heel, a quick step away from overtaking you. Mr. Dark is both ringleader and performer, covered in living tattoos, making deals and collecting souls. He knows what you most want and will trade anything to get what he most wants from you. He menaces and coaxes, and he is all the metaphorical and literal threats to our beings. His companions, Mr. Cooger and the Dust Witch would be terrifying in their own right, but here they are only the henchmen to the ultimate evil.
And, if you still need more reasons to read this novel, Bradbury is a master of language and depiction. He doesn’t show or tell in his descriptions, but instead appeals to every one of the reader’s senses. Are you feeling old or are you Transfixed at the mirror still, you would stand forever unable to lift your gaze from the proofs of Time. Are you hiding in a library or are you Somewhere in the recumbent solitudes … lost in two dozen turns right, three dozen turns left, down aisles, through corridors, toward dead ends, locked doors, half-empty shelves... (Damn, that description makes my librarian heart very happy).
Every Halloween I am asked what spooky read I would recommend, and every time I answer Something Wicked this Way Comes. It is somehow both cozy and unnerving and perfect for the season.
Bradbury would return to the Green Town setting more than once, including in his celebrated short story collection Dandelion Wine. But Something Wicked this Way Comes stands apart from the rest of the series for being the spooky one, and maybe that’s why it’s easily the most enduring story.
Some classify Something Wicked this Way Comes as a children’s story, though the audience most affected by its motifs are adults. I found the story as an adult, and I know the impact would never have been so spine tingling if I had read it when I was a kid (RE: intro about Fahrenheit 451).
But, if you are looking for an eerie novel for the middle school set, let’s discuss:
The Halloween Tree
The ravine, filled with varieties of night sounds, lurkings of black-ink stream and creek, lingerings of autumns that rolled over in fire and bronze and died a thousand years ago….There was a long tunnel down there under the earth in which poisoned waters dripped and the echoes never ceased calling Come Come Come and if you do you’ll stay forever, forever, drip, forever, rustle, run, rush, whisper, and never go, never go go . . .
Similar to Something Wicked this Way Comes, The Halloween Tree begins in a quaint town where eight kids are experiencing the peak moment in their lives to enjoy Halloween, dressing in costumes, focused on trick-or-treating. But, when a friend’s own mortality is thrown into peril, these kids readily accept the challenge of saving his life. Because they are still kids, they take on this grave endeavor as if it were a great adventure on their favorite night of the year. As the story begins, they only know that their friend is sick, and they’ll do whatever it takes to save him. By the end of the night, they will come to understand the meaning of true sacrifice as they are first awakened to the concept of Death.
As so Bradbury does it again, luring audiences with a sweet story about childhood and friendship, and then forcing readers to face down the limits of their own humanity with a fun adventure.
In The Halloween Tree our young protagonists are guided through a history of Halloween and its special relationship with death by Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, an unusual being whose intentions are never really questioned by these kids. He is certainly sinister in appearance and sometimes in attitude, but he is also the key to an epic quest to save young Pipkin, a boy who may sick, dying, or already dead. Whatever his actual health status (a mystery for the book’s final act), his soul has been scattered into the past across the major historical eras and events that have become the basis of the modern elements of Halloween.
Though written for a young audience, these historical scenes swing from spooky to exciting to pure nightmare fuel. As the kids encounter the unknown in each vignette, they somehow maintain a hopeful optimism only the gleefully naïve can muster. Bradbury expertly balances their upbeat dispositions against these dire situations, preserving the adventurous spirit that drives The Halloween Tree.
The Halloween Tree is perfect for the kid who is ready for their first real scares in fiction without the more mature themes of other middle school books. For adult readers, please enjoy the writing and try not to focus too much on the dread-inducing themes that underlie the story.
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