Review by Deborah K. Frontiera
On the first read, A Halloween Scare in Michigan is a cute, rhymed with good rhythm children’s picture book aimed at the four-to-eight-year-old set. It has that sing-song type rhyme that kids love and rolls off the tongue with ease. Not all rhymed books achieve that—there are almost always some spots where words get tripped up—but not in this one—which makes it a great read-aloud and a good book for teachers to use to teach or review rhyming words. Kids can supply the final word on many sentences without the adult saying it.
The plot is typical for a holiday book but has a twist at the end which makes it a kid-pleaser as well. A boy is the narrator, and he tells about his scary night trying to hide from Halloween monsters only to find them having a ball in his house and then presenting him with a prize for being the scariest of all.
That said, the idea of being in a particular state is formulaic. Yes, some town names are mentioned, the Mackinac Bridge comes into play and the illustrations show the word Michigan on store signs and one monster’s T-shirt, but all of these can easily be switched out for other state names and places. Only one full illustration and parts of a few others would need to be changed, and this is easy to do in our digital age. Indeed, a visit to the publisher’s website shows a second version already, A Halloween Scare in Texas.
So, while it is a cute story and fun for kids, this reviewer can’t recommend it as a truly Upper Michigan related or Michigan related book.
ISBN 978-1-7282-3369-7,
Hometown World, imprint of Sourcebooks Kids, Naperville IL, 2021,
ret. $9.99
