Some years ago, if you remember, it SNOWED on Halloween! It was a bit weird and out of sync, but it was fun.

Our kids did make snowmen and later trick or treat, bundled up to the nines against the blustery cold… which was short term.

That event came to my memory banks as I read “Snowmen at Halloween” by the husband/wife team of Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner.

They are also authors of the equally delightful:

“Snowmen at Night”

“Snowmen at Christmas”

Bu,t this Halloween finds their snow people at the heart of Halloween Eve, enjoying the night in their own celebratory way. They get dressed up too, as angels, witches, pirates, ghosts, cowboys, bats, robots, Robin Hood, King Tut and even Zorro.  These snow people are an imaginative lot!

“It’s a dark and spooky night, but the snowmen aren’t afraid-

 

They’ll follow one another in a Halloween parade.

 

Gliding down the moonlit streets into the village square,

 

Beckoned by the twinkling lights and lanterns hanging there.” 

If you’ve ever watched the series “Gilmore Girls” on TV, this picture book is what the equally legendary town of Stars Hallow of that series must look like in winter. Pretty and picturesque is all about the place.

Young readers will want to visit or, at the very least reproduce some of the festivities that the snowmen partake of on Halloween Eve.

And they would be candy and apple bobbing, trick or treating, of course, going through a maize made of hay, fishing for a surprise in a pool, face painting, and fortune telling….by a snowman!

Is there a melt in my future? That would be the very FIRST question asked, might be my guess.

The rhyming storytelling is first rate and the pictures by Mark Buehner evoke iciness, warmth, whimsey and good will in his double-paged art that lets story flow to a natural, yet uplifting conclusion.

As an added treat, young readers are encouraged to seek and find the T. rex, cat and rabbit  in each illustration.

And should they find patience lagging or frustration setting in, there IS a key in the underside of the book jacket.

I haven’t cheated yet, and I’m still peering in search of the trio.

It’s great fun, either during the story, or to go back at the end and search.

Happy Haunting sweet snow people!