Witches' Night Before Halloween
It's the night before Halloween, and these witches still have many last-minute things to do. They must organize ghosts and goblins, hang bats and stretch cobwebs, prepare potions and carve pumpkins, and make sure everything creepy, rusty, and slimy is in place before the haunting begins. Told with wickedly clever rhymes reflecting the spooky fun made by Mad-Maud, Elise-With-One-Eye, and Snaggle-Tooth-Ruth, this humorous tale will have kids more amused than frightened. References to ghouls, zombies, monsters, cemeteries, skeletons, and dank, moldy cellars will satisfy all Halloween lovers.  By the time the witches complete their preparations, reassured that their witchlings are ready to "show all humans what witches can do," we know that this Halloween will be a magical one, full of plenty of "good fright"!  Author Lesley Pratt Bannatyne is a leading authority on Halloween who also wrote A Halloween Reader: Poems, Stories, and Plays from Halloweens Past, A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations, and Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History, all available from Pelican. She resides in Somerville, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter and their black cat, Charcoal. Illustrator Adrian Tans has worked as a carpenter, ship's cook, stay-at-home dad, five-time Vermont state snow-sculpting champ, and photographer's assistant. He currently works as a painter and illustrator, exhibiting in a variety of galleries and venues. He lives with his wife, Lina, and their three children in Cambridge, Massachusetts.