Costumes for halloween & hen parties

Although the plot is convoluted and faintly perplexing, the overall effect is pleasingly sinister. Close ups of Mr. Blake, Alonzo’s seemingly mild mannered neighbor and cohort in all things macabre, inspire speculation about skeletons he may be harboring in his own closet. Readers will want to run right out and read The Lost City of Atlantis, or rent the old classic versions of Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, and Dracula.

Perfect Halloween fare from the illustrator of Andrew Clements’s Frindle and Pam Munoz Ryan’s Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride. Ages 7 to 11

Chapter 5 contains several pretty simple recipes, some of which overlap with decorating ideas. Most involve apples or pumpkins. They mostly strike me as treats for a children’s party, but might be handy for someone who has no halloween recipes of their own.

Chapter six is magick spells. They are your basic bunch of Silver Ravenwolf spells: A bit of rhyme, some magickal ingredients, invoking angels, mostly for love, prosperity, and protection.
Chater seven focuses on Halloween as a time to honour the dead. There’s a lot of the same kind of stuff as there was in the divination section. It included a funeral ceremony, which I was expecting, and sevel ways to honour the dead.

What this book was missing:
This book didn’t feel very wiccan to me. It was more about the “acting out” portion of halloween than anything personal and spiritual, it offered no suggestions on how to celebrate the holiday as a wiccan. It basically just meshed it incomprehensibly with how the Christians view the holiday. I can’t say that was what I was looking for in this book at all.

Also a little witchcraft if you’re so inclined.
Though I’m not actually Wiccan or Pagan, I found this book absolutely fascinating. I love Halloween and learning about it’s culture and history, so this book was perfect. Highly recommended!
The book is separated into 7 chapters, covering a pretty impressive variety of Halloween lore, beleifs and activities.

The first 3 chapters explore the history of halloween, the customs surrounding it, and the superstitions associated with it. These chapters are interesting, but show a slant toward the mainstream halloween more than the pagan holiday of Samhain. Many parts of this are highly speculative as she tries to associate just about every piece of history with witchcraft. The history in these chapters may not be completely reliable, but it’s a fairly interesting read.
Chapter four is all about divinations. This chapter somehow manages to find a bizarre balance between taking divination seriously and writing it off as a bunch of party games. The only method she goes into any great detail on is casting runes, and actually suggests making them out of pumkin seeds. This is also a chapter where she spends alot of time dwelling on apples. She has alot to say about apples in this book.