It is mystical and magical and charming, but definitely something that doesn’t quite hold up as well as I remembered as a child watching the film. I don’t know how historically accurate it is, but readers visit ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, The Druids in Britain, witches throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, the gargoyles of Notre Dame and, finally, Día de Muertos in Mexico, where each person gives a piece of themselves to save Pip. Moundshroud by traveling through time to learn the origin of their Halloween costumes. YouTube has a hodgepodge of scenes - mainly from other fans - to feed your nostalgia, but the source material can do the same.īradbury’s young adult story, published in 1972, centers on a group of eight boys who must save the soul of their friend, Pip, from the sly and sinister Mr. While the book may pop up on TBR lists seasonally, the movie appears largely forgotten (it isn’t streaming anywhere). It was then I made the connection between an obscure Hanna Barbera cartoon, which originally aired on The Cartoon Network, and its story of life and death and history on Halloween was, in fact, real and had source material. Stine was in his prime, cranking out Fear Street books galore, “ Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was airing on Nickelodeon and “ Hocus Pocus” and “ The Nightmare Before Christmas” premiered in theaters.īut, there’s another film from 1993 that only existed in fragments of my memory until last year when Bookstagrammers were posting spooky season reads and Ray Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree” made appearances. “ The Sandlot,” “ Free Willy” and “ Jurassic Park” all debuted, but for ghost-obsessed children, like me, we were swimming in quality content. In hindsight, 1993 was a banner year for kids entertainment. Reality: A little convoluted, but ultimately an entertaining and family friendly spooky story.

Expectation: A nostalgia-fueled story of what Halloween was like for kids in the 1970s and 1980s.

The halloween tree bradbury