2019 Halloween Treasure Hunt

Happy Halloween! We’re having our second annual Halloween Hunt, where we hide pumpkins around the site and you solve clues to find them.

  • Decipher the clues below and visit the corresponding LibraryThing pages to find a pumpkin. Each clue points to a specific page right here on LibraryThing. Remember, they are not necessarily work pages!
  • If there's a pumpkin on a page, you'll see a banner at the top of the page.
  • You have a little more than one week to find all the pumpkins (until 5pm EDT, Thursday October 31st).
  • Come brag about your pumpkin patch (and get hints) on Talk.

Win prizes:

  • Any member who finds at least one pumpkin will be awarded a pie Badge ().
  • Any member who finds at least five pumpkins will get their account upgraded to a lifetime membership.
  • Members who find all 15 pumpkins will be entered into a drawing for one of five LibraryThing (or TinyCat) t-shirts. We'll announce winners at the end of the hunt.

Sign in or sign up to participate.

Pumpkin 1

At the hotel Magnificent
They plan their evil deed
To rid England of all children
Read me to see if they succeed.

Pumpkin 2

What is it about the full moon
That calls us all to swoon?
The pull of the tide, the silver-lit hayrides,
An undertow like ancient runes.
In their blood an alchemical change,
From song to howl a new vocal range.
Sinews a-stretch and bones cracking (you’ll retch)
Until at last, not human but strange.

Pumpkin 3

Let’s bring the walls up with little ado,
Most easily led the jester easily lied to.
Drink up, my friend, and step further into here...
What? Oh, just bones—pay them no mind, my dear.
This short story is hardly a bore
By the author croaking “Nevermore”

Pumpkin 4

the clue will take a circuitous route,
but at least it won’t be scary.
follow me and take a bite—
electronic Apples do not weary.
once a man built a box of magic sand
and then a whole empire appeared.
then his daughter penned her thoughts
on that kingdom many hold quite dear.
her memoir’s not directly straight autumnal,
but not every clue’s without a fumble.

Pumpkin 5

Dear Joanne already used the rhymes
And Merlin knows culture did the rest—
Oh what a rotter, he marries Molly’s daughter,
The series of ____ ______.

Pumpkin 6

A famous poet you may know
you’ll find among his tales of woe
“Quoth the raven nevermore” --
he died in Baltimore.

Pumpkin 7

What’s more autumn than Vermont and witches:
A pumpkin-spice sweater in boots in Cape Bretton?
The owner of the knitting shop at the center of this tale
And a human cop investigating supernatural murders a-threaten
Will-they-won’t-they in this romance,
Sweet like sap from maple trees lanced.

Pumpkin 8

He’s the doctor, not the monster
(The latter quite a literate boy.)
Now that we’re all here,
That’s not what I want—
Sorry that with your hopes I toyed.
What I want is the name of the mom
Who gave us the girl who wrote
the tale—writ on a dare
In the summer rainy air—
about why undergrads shouldn’t gloat.

Pumpkin 9

Which pumpkin patch is finest?
A friend of Charlie waits
A true believer is our Linus
That an orange vegetable is great.

Pumpkin 10

He’s showered teens in blood.
He’s raised cats from the dead.
He’s made kids walk to death.
He’s tortured writers in bed.
Long may his reign.
From his typewriter in Maine.

Pumpkin 11

This tome from Tor has the goods:
Lesbians and swords and an eerily painted face,
and bones, and magic that leaves a trace.
Harrow's a necromancer in space
and Gid, her cavalier, will protect her more than anyone could.
(Oh, and you'll get the author name from the San Fran Woods)

Pumpkin 12

All hail Akasha, awakened now from sleep!
All hail Akasha, empress of horrors deep!
Come back to claim her brood,
This queen is in a mood.
Won’t it be so nice
When you find this book by Anne ____?

Pumpkin 13

It comes in types, to receive and to give.
It carries the air and is there so you may live.
Viscous, dripping, exsanguinated red—
Keep it all inside, or else you might get dead.
This book looks at a unit of the same,
The number of lives a cat, by a Rose which is her name.

Pumpkin 14

Those without sin shall cast the first stone,
Against you with the black spot, all alone.
How to keep the peace and renewed prosperity?
With the annual horrific drawing in Jackson’s ___ _______.

Pumpkin 15

His haunting tales stalk childhood dreams,
With chess pieces and houses that go tick.
These classics sit much neglected on shelves,
But are perfect for kids loving grotesque and sick.
No, it’s not R.L. Stine, but good try, I suppose.
You’ll have to look further back in history.
In ‘73 he made his big splash,
With a tightly wound mansion, a gothic mystery.