The Best Halloween Ever (The Herdmans)

by Barbara Robinson (Author)

The Best Halloween Ever (The Herdmans)
Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade
Series: The Herdmans

The Herdmans plus Halloween have always spelled disaster

Every Halloween, the six Herdman kids steal candy, spray-paint other kids, and take everything that isn't nailed down. And this year promises to be the same, until the Mayor decides to up and cancel Halloween. True, that means there'd be no Herdman trouble to contend with, but that also means no candy, no costumes, and no trick-or-treating! Is it possible that the Herdmans themselves could make what looks like a horrible Halloween into the best one ever?

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Publisher's Weekly

Fans of Robinson's previous tales about the Herdman family (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; The Best School Year Ever) may be disappointed in this latest installment—mostly because the six hellions are absent for the majority of the novel. Of course, this is the point: the mayor, the principal and the parents of the students at Woodrow Wilson School unite in a citywide effort for a "Herdman-free Halloween." The mayor banishes candy from the stores and trick-or-treating on the streets, in favor of a school bash on October 31 that, in narrator Beth Bradley's words, more resembles "Back-to-School Night." The six siblings that wreaked havoc on the town and its citizens in books past also supplied the narratives' main source of energy and humor, and without them, Beth, her brother, Charlie, and their classmates seem to be simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. As they (and readers) anticipate the events of the final chapters to see what the Herdmans have in store, the book reads like one big build-up, and the holiday itself is, unfortunately, an anticlimax. Ages 8-up. (Aug.)

Copyright 2006 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission

Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780060766016
Lexile Measure
890
Guided Reading Level
Q
Publisher
HarperCollins
Publication date
July 20, 2006
Series
The Herdmans
BISAC categories
JUV019000 - Juvenile Fiction | Humorous Stories
JUV017030 - Juvenile Fiction | Holidays & Celebrations | Halloween
Library of Congress categories
-

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