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The Adventures of Pugalugs: Trick or Treat
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Adventures of Pugalugs: Trick or Treat by Jessica Parish is the Halloween edition of Pugalugs. It is a cute story that should not scare children at all.

In this Halloween adventure Pugalugs is getting ready to go trick or treating with his siblings Dug and Bella. He starts digging through a chest full of costumes trying to find the perfect one. Unfortunately, he finds this task o be a bit on the difficult side. Pugalugs and his siblings seem to be able to find something wrong with every costume he tries out. He tries everything from a scary ghost to a silly pumpkin. Finally, at the very end, Pugalugs finds the perfect costume at the bottom of the chest. After getting dressed up Pugalugs surprise everyone with his wonderful disguise.

What I liked best was each of the costumes that Pugalugs tries on is cute in its own way. Pugalugs entertains children with his silly antics by tripping over the tail of one costume and getting all tangled up in another one. At the end, he decides the best thing to be is himself. What I didn’t like was that this book was not quite what I expected, although that is not a problem. I was expecting Pugalugs to actually be trick or treating and possibly overcoming a fear. Instead, Pugalugs is getting ready to go trick or treating but never actually leaves the house.

Animal lovers of all ages will enjoy this fun Halloween book. Toddlers and young children will enjoy having this book read to them over and over again while slightly older children will enjoy reading it themselves. I rate this book 4 out of 4. The small paragraphs accompanied by full-page pictures keep the book from being intimidating to young readers. The rhymes in this book keep it moving at a steady speed and it has a wonderful lesson for children; be your self.

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Haunted House Murder
Haunted House Murder
7
7.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Cozy Halloween Hauntings
This collection of three novellas focuses on Halloween. The book opens with the title story featuring Leslie Meier’s protagonist Lucy Stone. A couple has moved into the old abandoned house in town, but they are rebuffing efforts from Lucy and others to welcome them to town. Then strange things start happening and rumors start flying. What is happening? Up next is “Death by Haunted House” by Lee Hollis which takes up back to 2009 and shows us what life was like for Hayley Powell while she was married. When the house next door, which is rumored to be haunted, gets a new family, Hayley’s husband Danny is certain that they are up to something. The discovery of a dead body in the nearby woods just confirms his theory – at least to himself. Is he right? Finally comes “Hallowed Out” from Barbara Ross. The local Haunted House tour is gearing up for Halloween, trying to bring some more people to town in the fall. However, when a reenactment of a crime leaves an actor dead, Julia Snowden must figure out what happened.

As you might expect in a collection of stories by various authors, some are stronger than others. Personally, I found the opening story to be the weakest – I think it might have worked as a short story, but even as a novella is was too long. The middle story was better, with some fun scenes and a good twist to the mystery. I adore Barbara Ross’s Maine Clambake mysteries, so it was the reason I picked up the book. It also means I found the third story to be the best, with some good twists and a very fun sub-plot. While each story has plenty of fall atmosphere, these stories aren’t that spooky – they are by cozy mystery authors after all. Still, fans of these authors will enjoy picking up the book.
  
Halloween (2007)
Halloween (2007)
2007 | Horror
A successful re-imagining but turned up to 11!
When I first heard director Rob Zombie was going to have a hand at Halloween, I couldn't have been more excited. His films up to that point had been intense, scary, gruesome, gothic, sexual and down-rite awesome!

This reinvention had big shoes to fill since the original Halloween is not only a scary movie classic, but invented or perfected a lot of horror elements still used in films today.

The additions to the story proved successful seeing a lot more scenes of Michael as a child, his dysfunctional family roots (which could have been part of his inner demons) and more details around his escape from the psychiatric hospital. Then the original story plays out as you are familiar; although, more intense and evil.

The third act does seem to drag out just a bit as the movie is around 2 hours in length.

Great to see a lot of "B" movie actors appear in the film including Malcolm McDowell, Clint Howard, Brad Dourif, Dee Wallace and Richard Lynch. Also Danielle Harris who was the little girl in parts 4 & 5 is also there as another homage.

Overall, a successful reboot with enough mixture of old and new to keep me very well entertained.