Witches’ Night Before Halloween

By: Lesley Pratt Bannatyne
Illustrated by: Adrian Tans 
Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company 
Publication Date: August 2007 
ISBN: 978-1589804852 
Reviewed By: Holly Connors
Review Date: October 2009 

Witches, ghost, and goblins, oh my! Halloween is fast approaching and the spooks are getting ready to celebrate their favorite holiday.

Witches’ Night Before Halloween is a fun, poetic look at the night when witches haunt the skies and zombies roam the Earth. The author, Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, has done a fabulous job of taking a well-known poem, The Night Before Christmas and turning it into a Halloween romp. Anybody care to find a rhyme for ‘cottages’ that fits the Halloween theme? No doubt it wasn’t easy but the author created the perfect verses throughout so that her poem flows well and keeps the fun moving along.

Dark, flurry, four-footed hard-to-see things
That take to the sky amidst flutter of wings; 
Red-headed banshees with ear-splitting wails; 
And a rheumy-eyed ghost dressed in neatly pressed tails. 

The illustrator, Adrian Tans, has done a nice job of keeping the mood light with smiles on almost all the creatures in this tale. Granted, the frog, who appears in several scenes, looks a bit concerned as he clings to a flying broom, but I suspect kids will enjoy his repeated appearances and giggle at his escapades. Witches’ Night Before Halloween will likely be read over and over as that special night in October approaches.

Quill says: An entertaining look at Halloween through a well-known yet modified poem.