Something Wicked This Way Comes
After Ray Bradbury died earlier this year, there was an outpouring of
tributes from a number of writers and artists. Reading all of it made
me realize how much I'd missed out by not reading any of Bradbury's work
over the years. Well, that isn't quite true. I read Farenheit 451 in high school, but I missed almost all of his other books. I decided it was time to fix that.
I bought Something Wicked This Way Comes and was immediately met with another surprise. The receipt for the book listed recommendations for related books, among them The Halloween Tree. When I was little there was a movie called The Halloween Tree that was one of my favorites. My brother and I rented it from the video store over and over and finally just bought it. The tape was bright orange - fitting for the subject - and it was on constantly in our playroom during October. Imagine my surprise to find that Bradbury had penned one of my favorite stories (he even narrates the movie).
All of this made me even more eager to dive in to Something Wicked This Way Comes and, as the weather began cooling off, it finally felt like the right time. Spooky books are so much better when there's a chill in the air. Fog is preferred, but cloudy, drizzly weather works, too.
Right away the reader is introduced to Jim and Will, a week before their fourteenth birthday, in the year when Halloween came a week early and both cross the threshold from boy to man.
Halloween comes early in the form of a traveling carnival. The boys find themselves both drawn to it, terrified of it, sneaking out of their houses to play midnight visits, running away but being drawn back almost against their will.
The book is frightening, and a lot of that is due to Bradbury's prose, which is hypnotic and almost lyrical. It draws you right in to the dark, cold night. The way he describes the Mirror Maze, the Illustrated Man, the Dust Witch, the Merry-Go-Round with its haunting calliope, brings them completely to life.
I really enjoyed this book and almost wish I had waited until October to read it. But there's always next year (or possibly next month depending on my mood).
I bought Something Wicked This Way Comes and was immediately met with another surprise. The receipt for the book listed recommendations for related books, among them The Halloween Tree. When I was little there was a movie called The Halloween Tree that was one of my favorites. My brother and I rented it from the video store over and over and finally just bought it. The tape was bright orange - fitting for the subject - and it was on constantly in our playroom during October. Imagine my surprise to find that Bradbury had penned one of my favorite stories (he even narrates the movie).
All of this made me even more eager to dive in to Something Wicked This Way Comes and, as the weather began cooling off, it finally felt like the right time. Spooky books are so much better when there's a chill in the air. Fog is preferred, but cloudy, drizzly weather works, too.
Right away the reader is introduced to Jim and Will, a week before their fourteenth birthday, in the year when Halloween came a week early and both cross the threshold from boy to man.
Halloween comes early in the form of a traveling carnival. The boys find themselves both drawn to it, terrified of it, sneaking out of their houses to play midnight visits, running away but being drawn back almost against their will.
The book is frightening, and a lot of that is due to Bradbury's prose, which is hypnotic and almost lyrical. It draws you right in to the dark, cold night. The way he describes the Mirror Maze, the Illustrated Man, the Dust Witch, the Merry-Go-Round with its haunting calliope, brings them completely to life.
I really enjoyed this book and almost wish I had waited until October to read it. But there's always next year (or possibly next month depending on my mood).
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