Product Description

What is the difference between a goblin and a ghoul? What's the recipe for pumpkin soup? Where can you see the oldest Halloween parade in the United States? Have you ever wondered how to keep your carved pumpkin from decaying too quickly?

If you're looking for information and instructions about every aspect of Halloween, you've come to the right place. A Halloween How-To is packed with ideas for October 31. There are fifty great costumes you can make yourself, recipes for everything from fake blood to pumpkin soup, and lists of great movies, CDs, and spooky books.

Lesley Bannatyne has even assembled a number of games drawn from early twentieth-century Halloween celebrations, and includes sample text for party invitations. (Our Halloween: Romantic Art and Customs of Yesteryear postcards are great to use with these!)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #395630 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-25
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .66" h x 5.90" w x 8.85" l, .83 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this entertaining romp, Bannatyne discusses Halloween trends past and present, dissecting such fun topics as costumes, recipes, movies, parties, myths and expeditions (Salem or bust!). She even closes with an up-to-the-minute chapter on "what's next" in Halloween observance. (According to the author, disguising yourself as a pillowcase ghost is so very last year, but you can't go wrong with classic monsters such as vampires and witches.) One of the most fascinating chapters addresses some of the myths about Halloween. Bannatyne claims, for example, that the razor-blades-in-apples-scare is merely an urban legend with no basis in fact. Who knew?

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
From a sociological history of Halloween and its contemporary traditions to a guide to the ideal sound effects to make your party creepy (think Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries), this how-to offers everything anyone would ever want to know about All Hallows Eve. Bannatyne takes us through decorating houses, yards, and ourselves; planning a killer Halloween party; embarking on must-see Halloween pilgrimages (don't miss the Punkin Chuckin' Contest in Morton, Illinois); and preparing Halloween cuisine ("beyond blood punch"). Bannatyne's anecdotes and lifelong obsession with Halloween give the book a readable quality in spite of the lengthy lists and detailed how-to information. This will be a useful reference for both the growing population of adults who revel in Halloween and folks who seek to make the trick-or-treat experience a little more harrowing for unsuspecting children in costume. If nothing else, those who follow this book carefully are sure to win every Halloween contest they enter, whether dressed as an out-of-work superhero or a giant post-it note. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
For more than twenty years, Ms. Bannatyne also has been active in the theater. She currently is co-director of Invisible Cities Group and co-artistic director of the Studebaker Theater. Ms. Bannatyne resides in Somerville, Massachusetts, and has been named one of "Boston's 100 Interesting Women" by Boston Woman magazine. Ms. Bannatyne's first book, Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History (pb original) is also available from Pelican.