Cynthia Fisher

The Night Before Halloween by Natasha Wing is a wonderful halloween children’s picture book. This book would be grade appropriate for children in kindergarten to third grade. The book centers around a group of monsters, and a group of children that are preparing for Halloween. The book depicts both the monsters and children's activities prior to Halloween day. On Halloween day the children go trick or treating, and after going to a few houses they reach the monster’s house. They are greeted by a witch who opens the door, and the children quickly realize that her guise is no costume. Upon this realization all of the children run away, and the monsters who are actually quite nice throw a party and celebrate Halloween. In terms of a central message I think one possible message you can take away would be to never judge a book by its cover. The children were terrified of the witch, but in reality the witch and the little monsters just wanted to have a party with the children. Overall I would rate this book 3 ½ stars, I really enjoyed the warm and festive pictures, and I thought the story was very cute.… (more)