Happy Halloween!

Ginnie And The New Girl, Catherine Woolley (1954)

A new favorite holiday for adults, Halloween has lost some of its luster in recent years for children. Of course, modern children do get sweet snacks on occasions other than Halloween and Christmas, but it still seems unfair that myths about poisoned candy and parental vapors about kidnappers resulted in a mass retreat from the joys of Halloween.

Below are a few lists of children's books which fit the season.

Halloween
The House With A Clock In The Walls by John Bellairs
Ginnie And The New Girl by Catherine Woolley (chapter Ghosts And Goblins)
The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom (chapter Butterflies Or Ballet Dancers?)
The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
Mr. McFadden's Halloween by Rumer Godden

Ghosts
Ghosts Who Went To School by Judith Spearing

Witches
The Wednesday Witch by Ruth Chew (pretty much Ruth Chew's entire bibliography)
Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett
The Blue-Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry
The Littlest Witch by Jeanne Massey

Vampires
Bunnicula by James Howe

Scary
The House With A Clock In The Walls by John Bellairs is, like most of Bellairs' books, warm and cozy and more than a little unnerving. The Halloween scene in which Lewis accidentally sets free a malevolent spirit is one of many that gives the book its strength as a genuine little horror novel for kids.
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder is another. The story, which allows for a supernatural or psychological explanation, follows a girl's relationship with a stray kitten whose hideous appearance prompts the name Worm. Jessica becomes convinced that Worm is evil, a conduit for a coven of witches, and working against her.

Picture Books
Old Black Witch by Wende Devlin
The Witch Kitten by Ruth Carroll
How Spider Saved Halloween by Robert Kraus

Little Toot

Little Toot

Hardie Gramatky, author and illustrator

1939, G.P. Putnam's Sons

Little Toot hated work. He saw no sense in pulling ships fifty times bigger than himself all the way down to the ocean. And he was scared of the wild seas that lay in wait outside the channel, beyond where the harbor empties into the ocean.

A small tugboat who prefers play over work is shamed by the other boats and must prove himself during a storm.

The writing is fine but it's the illustrations that make this a classic. I grew up on a river and the chubby little tugs are the most appealing of boats. Dwarfed by the great tankers and cargo ships, they're chunky workhorses beside the sleek sailboats and yachts. But they look like they'll be here forever, long after the last speedboat has sunk. And Gramatky captures that sturdy, powerful look to perfection, and gives each boat a personality.

Availability

A new edition was issued in 2007 by Putnam, which used first editions and original paintings to restore the original's rich color. It is an amazing difference (see here); the copy I was using to write this review was a 1963 edition, and the cover is worlds away from the original or the 2007; the little boat's hat is orange, the background a faded blue-grey.

Links

Penguin

Amazon

About the author

1907-1979

A watercolorist with a clear affinity for the water, Gramatky based his famous tugboat on boats he'd watched in New York City's East River. He had been at the Walt Disney Studio in its early days before coming to New York with his wife Dorothea, also an artist.

Much more information is available at the website (check out Yacht Race under Paintings - gorgeous)

Other books

Little Toot series

Little Toot

Little Toot on the Thames

Little Toot on the Grand Canal

Little Toot on the Mississippi

Little Toot through the Golden Gate

Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster

Hercules

Loopy

Sparky

Homer And The Circus Train

Bolivar

Nikos And The Sea God

Happy's Christmas

Creeper's Jeep

The Paddy Pork series (John S. Goodall)

The Paddy Pork series

John S. Goodall

Browsing through the Easy Fiction section of the library, I stumbled across this series of small books for small children and was instantly added to what appears to be a faithful following of Goodall's illustrations. The delicate artwork and sheer charm of the little pig's adventures remind me strongly of the Little Bear series, but the darkness of some illustrations is all British. Goodall was an artist who used sympathetic flair and painstaking detail to create small books without text but filled with story. Here is the first one.

The Adventures Of Paddy Pork

1968, Harcourt, Brace & World

In the first of the Paddy Pork series, a little pig runs off to join the circus and falls afoul of a treacherous (and quite scary) fox. When at last he finds the circus folk, he discovers that home's best.

About the Author

John Strickland Goodall

1908-1996

Obituary in The Independent

Website

Brown-Studies

Other books

The Adventures of Paddy Pork

The Ballooning Adventures of Paddy Pork

Paddy's Evening Out

Paddy Pork's Holiday

Paddy's New Hat

Paddy Finds a Job: A Pop-Up Story

Paddy Pork--Odd Jobs

Paddy Under Water

Paddy to the Rescue

The Story Of An English Village

An Edwardian Summer

An Edwardian Christmas

An Edwardian Season

An Edwardian Holiday

Edwardian Entertainment

Victorians Abroad

Naughty Nancy

Naughty Nancy Goes To School

Naughty Nancy: The Bad Bridesmaid

Shrewbettina's Birthday

Shrewbettina Goes To Work: A Pop Up Story

The Story Of An English Village

The Story Of A Main Street

The Story Of A Farm

The Story Of A Castle

Creepy Castle

Before The War 1908-1939

Lavina's Cottage

Great Days Of A Country House

The Surprise Picnic

The Midnight Adventures Of Kelly, Dot And Esmeralda

Above And Below Stairs

Little Red Riding Hood

Whitby Abbey

Jacko

John S. Goodall's Theatre: The Sleeping Beauty

Kelly Dot and Esmerelda

Paddy Pork: Odd Jobs

Escapade

Field-Mouse House

Also

Many of the Fairacre and Thrush Green books published under the pseudonym Miss Read (Dora Saint) were illustrated by Goodall.

Horatio (1968)

Horatio

Eleanor Clymer, il. Robert Quackenbush

1968, Atheneum

Mrs. Casey was very kind. Too kind. She was kind to everybody, even strangers. One rainy day she took in a stray puppy. He was cold and hungry, and she gave him some bread and milk and rubbed him with a towel.

But what did she do then? Did she open the door and send him on his way? No, indeed. She let him stay.

"We'll call him Sam," she said. "He'll be company for you, Horatio."

Horatio didn't want company.

The little story in this early reader book is very good, but the illustrations are superlative. A cranky orange cat, annoyed at his kind-hearted owner for taking in other pets, becomes lost and finds himself playing nurse to a pair of alley kittens.

About the Author

1906-2001

Born in New York City, she attended Barnard and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1928. She wrote nearly 60 books.

Other books - Horatio series

Leave Horatio Alone

Horatio's Birthday

Horatio Goes To The Country

Horatio Solves A Mystery

Other books

The Trolley Car Family

Sociable Toby

My Brother Stevie

The Tiny Little House

Hamburgers And Ice Cream For Dessert

Harry The Wild West Horse

Links/Sources

de Grummond collection

About the Illustrator

Website

Baby Island (Carol Ryrie Brink, 1937)

Baby Island
Carol Ryrie Brink, il. Moneta Barnett
1937 (pictured: 1971, Scholastic)

"Now, Jean," said Mary firmly, "we've just got to be brave. I planned everything out last night while you were asleep and the boat was drifting along. Mr. Snodgrass was telling me only the other day that there are hundreds of little islands in this part of the sea, and I'm hoping to reach one before night."

12-year-old Mary Wallace and her 10-year-old sister Jean are making the long sea voyage from San Francisco to Australia to rejoin their father when the SS Orminta founders in a tropical storm. Both girls adore babies, and in the confusion of the sinking ship they end up alone on a lifeboat with all four of the babies on board, including the Reverend Snodgrass's toddler twins Elijah and Elisha, and the two infants Jonah Snodgrasss and Ann Elizabeth Arlington. Both girls are amusingly and staunchly self-reliant, and when their nerves begin to shake they brace themselves with tales of their Scottish heritage. They do soon reach a tropical island, and set up housekeeping with all the zest of two little housewives cleaning a dusty room.

They laid a circle of stones beside the stream, and that evening had their first campfire. It was pleasant to have warm food again, even if it was only heated in cans and cups, but more pleasant still, it was, to have a friendly flame to hold back the dark mystery of the tropical night.

On the island, they also find Mr. Peterkin, a Cockney sailor who fled a threatening marriage to live alone on the island. He's dismayed to have domesticity and small children thrust upon him after all that effort to avoid them, but he is slowly won over by baby Ann Elizabeth, who admires his whiskers.

Throughout their adventures, the Wallace girls are, more than anything else, sensible. While not technically orphans, their mother died when they were small and their father had left them to the care of housekeepers, basically meaning Mary ran the household. So neither is too sad to be parted from family for months, although they do get lonely. They both adore babies and spent much of the sea voyage babysitting, and to a great extent their shipwrecked state is blissful. Jean, younger and more harum-scarum, adopts a baby monkey, and both girls revel in providing food and shelter for their little charges.

Similar
The Boxcar Children

About the Author
Brink was born in 1895 and died in 1981. She won the Newberry Prize for her 1935 book Caddie Woodlawn. Born in Idaho, she got her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and married a mathematician.

Other Books
Children's
Anything Can Happen On The River
Caddie Woodlawn
Magical Melons aka Caddie Woodlawn's Family (sequel to Caddie Woodlawn)
Family Grandstand
The Highly Trained Dogs Of Professor Petit
Family Sabbatical (sequel to Family Grandstand)
The Pink Motel
Andy Buckram's Tin Men
Two Are Better Than One
Winter Cottage
The Bad Times Of Irma Baumlein (aka Irma's Big Lie)
Lad With A Whistle
Louly

Children's - Picture/Easy
Goody O'Grumpity

Adult
Buffalo Coat
Strangers In The Forest
Snow In the River

Adult - Nonfiction
A Chain Of Hands
Four Girls On A Homestead

Unsure
All Over Town
Mademoiselle Misfortune
Narcissa Whitman
Minty Et Compagnie
Lafayette
Harps In The Wind
Stopover
The Headland
The Twin Cities
Chateau Saint Barnabe
The Bellini Look

Other editions:

Thursday's Child

Thursday's Child
Noel Streatfeild, il. Peggy Fortnum
1970, Random House

When young Margaret is sent to an orphanage in 1900 England, the cruel Matron instantly divines that here is a child whose spirit must be broken.

"One of those independent children," she agreed. "It will take some time before she is molded to our shape. Send her to me when she comes in from school tomorrow. She shall have ten strokes on each hand. That will teach her who is the ruler in this establishment."

Good luck, cruel Matron. Margaret is a sturdy, outspoken child whose remorseless imagination and strong sense of her own story - she was left on a doorstep as a baby, with fine baby clothes and a secret benefactor who sent gold to her caretakers every year for ten years - makes her impervious. She also has an ally in Lavinia Beresford, a fellow orphan who has gained employment in a big house as a scullery maid, and her two little brothers, Peter and Horatio, who are fellow inmates at St. Luke's.

Matron is a standard big, evil woman. Lavinia and her brothers are the standard upper-class children fallen upon hard times and Margaret is a standard chutzpah-laden upstart. Yet despite the cliches, it's a good, satisfying read. Perhaps because of kid-lit gems like this:

In the kitchen there was a cupboard called "The Housemaid's Cupboard." This was always bulging with snacks: game, cold chicken, cold meats, as well as fruit puddings and cakes. Any of the staff could help themselves from that cupboard whenever they felt hungry. Lavinia took a plate and piled on it a rich assortment of food. Then, fetching a knife and fork, she sat down at the table and ate the lot.

The book pays subtle honor to the classic orphan stories; there's more than a hint of Mary, of Anne, of Sarah Crewe. But Margaret is a 20th century heroine, albeit early; at the end, when she's offered the standard dream outcome for an orphan - a rich ready-made family - she reacts:

Her chin shot into the air. "Thank you very much but I don't want to be anyone's daughter. I was not found like an ordinary baby. I had three of everything all marked with crowns and each year lots of money was paid to keep me. I have friends, Hannah and the rector, and I've got a stamp so I am writing to ask them to come and see me act Little Lord Fauntleroy."

Other Information
This book has a sequel, Far To Go, and was made into a television miniseries by the BBC in 1973. This is available on TV.com

Websites
The White Gauntlet

Other Books
Ballet Shoes
Circus Shoes
Dancing Shoes
Family Shoes
Movie Shoes
New Shoes
Skating Shoes
Theater Shoes
Traveling Shoes
The Children On The Top Floor
The Family At Caldicott Place
The Magic Summer
Queen Victoria

The House Of Thirty Cats
Mary Calhoun, il. Mary Chalmers
1965, Harper & Row

Sarah Rutledge is lonely since her only friend moved away, so her mother says she can have a kitten. In the small town where she lives, this means visiting Miss Tabitha Henshaw's little cottage at the edge of town, but Sarah is reluctant to risk breaking the enchantment she instinctively feels hangs around what she privately calls The House of Thirty Cats. What if it turns out to just be another ordinary house? But Sarah wants a kitten, so she shyly starts for the house. But just as she reaches the gate, a prowling black cat attacks another cat without provocation, and as Sarah tries to force the invader off his victim, Miss Tabitha intervenes, mistaking Sarah for the aggressor.

Miss Tabitha realizes her mistake, but although she welcomes the little girl, she also welcomes the black cat, soon dubbed Tarnish. Sarah senses that Tarnish is not the sad wayfarer Miss Tabitha claims, but an evil cat. And Tarnish is soon leading the other cats in midnight forays around town, causing trouble that culminates in a decree that Miss Tabitha must get rid of all but a few of her cats. Which is when shy, dreamy Sarah comes reluctantly out of her introspective world to study her neighbors, searching to fit cats to people. At the same time, she tries to keep Tarnish from hurting her kitten, Lilybug, whose sweetness seems to attract the maurader.

While Miss Tabitha toes the party line on redemption and second chances, it's ultimately Sarah's instant, instinctive judgement of Tarnish that carries the day. Which is so unusual in children's books that it's like a lightning bolt. At the end, she wonders if Tarnish was drawn despite himself to the goodness of the other cats, but her final comment on the cat is Tarnish's possibilities were ended. And though it contains some sadness, it also contains the relief and rightness that Tarnish's evil possibilities are ended.

But apart from this, the book contains various magical scenes, among them the feline birthday party for Horace. And while most of the book is from Sarah's point of view, there is one passage that briefly shows a cat's-eye view of the proceedings in a style that evokes pure cat:

Mine, thought Horace. All for me. Horace sat up proudly in the grass and surveyed his party with satisfaction. Of course all this excitement was just for him. The nose-tickly smells of hot fish and sweet cookies, the woman making a fuss over him, cats dashing around like sillies. All because Horace was wonderful. Of course.

Other Books by the Author
Katie John
Honestly, Katie John!
Depend On Katie John
Katie John And Heathcliff
Magic In The Alley
White Witch Of Kynance
The Horse Comes First

Easy Reader
Cross Country Cat
Henry The Sailor Cat
Henry The Christmas Cat
High-Wire Henry
Blue Ribbon Henry
Audubon Cat
Wobble The Witch Cat
Tonio's Cat

About the Illustrator
Mary Chalmers was born March 16, 1927 in Camden, N.J. She studied at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (now the College of Art and Design within the University of the Arts) and the Barnes Foundation. A cat owner (obviously) who lived in Maryland. The illustrations in the original book were wonderful. Other books illustrated by Mary Chalmers include my beloved The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom, and many popular beginner books including Three To Get Ready by Betty Boeghehold and The Happy Birthday Present by Joan Heilbroner.