PictureBooks Archives

Another Halloween is upon us and I’ve pulled out our Halloween book stash to read this week. I’ve been blessed with some new ones this year as this summer a retired children’s librarian was downsizing and getting rid of her children’s book collection and I gratefully accepted many of her books into my book-loving home.

As a child, Halloween was one of my favourite nights of the year. I remember eagerly waiting for dark to get my costume on and head out into the chilly October night to fill my pillow case with candy from the neighbours. Now, as a grown-up and a mom, I still love Halloween but I also hate it? Halloween is fun but it is also a lot of work and the payoff, other than seeing delight in my kids eyes, is over-tired over-sugared children and sometimes, I admit, I’m glad to see the end of the festivities. But, I know, drawing on my background in anthropology and my interest in cultural rituals – that Halloween is doing its job if I’m feeling that way at the end of it.

Halloween is a perfect example of a Rite of Reversal. I’ve written a few other posts about this over the years, but they get buried in my blog. And, this year, I’ve learned more about neurodiversity, so I thought I’d provide an update on this Rite of Reversal.

Rite of Reversal

A rite of reversal is a ritual in which the social order is reversed; the world devolves into chaos and then reverts back to order. These rites are important in human culture because they remind us why we have social conventions and rules in the first place. Sure, chaos is fun for an evening, but at the end of the day, when you crawl into bed, you’re happy that when you wake up in the morning, things will go back to the way they were. Trick-or-treating on Halloween night is an example of a rite of reversal.

On Halloween:

Children, who are usually only in public spaces in the daytime, get to run through the streets after dark, often without their parents.
Children get to go to stranger’s homes and rather rudely, threateningly demand candy (Trick or Treat!).
Children get to dress in costume.
Spooky and scary replaces light-hearted and predictable.
Children get to eat lots of junk food/candy.

Everyday I try to teach my children to be polite (say please and thank you and not be demanding or threatening), to dress appropriately (not go out in public in costume), to eat healthily (celery sticks not chocolate bars), and to not ever take candy from strangers. Yet, on Halloween, the opposite of these behaviours is allowed and encouraged. We literally send our kids out at night in a costume to threaten strangers to give them candy or they will play a trick on them.

Halloween is special. On Halloween you can break the rules. In doing so, it releases tension between child and parent and reinforces why we have rules at all. While Halloween is a fun night and some kids might wish it were Halloween every day, the fact that it isn’t every day is what makes it so fun and so special.

I care about Halloween for my kids for a bigger reason than their smiling faces covered in chocolate at 9 o’clock at night…I believe it is an important cultural rite that helps balance the adult-child or rule-maker/rule-follower relationship.

My son has a love/hate relationship with Halloween. He loves candy, but he hates costumes. He loves candy, but he hates scary things. He loves candy, but he hates surprises. He loves candy, but he hates flashing lights, dark ominous music, and walking in the dark. He likes predictability, the familiar, the routine. He likes knowing what the rules are and following them closely. On Halloween, we throw the rules out and there are opposite rules, and also different socially-unwritten rules to learn (like how many times is it respectful to ring a doorbell, how many candies do you take, how to be polite, while also demanding candy).

Explaining Halloween as a Rite of Reversal has been helpful. Explaining that this discomfort he feels is normal and expected. It’s actually on purpose! He can feel excited about halloween, but also anxious about it. It can be his favourite holiday, but also be really glad when it’s over. He loves rules, and he also loves opposites. So explaining that Halloween has opposite rules, makes sense to him. It’s a way of ordering this disorderly event and understanding why on earth we do this every year. Maybe this will help you too explain Halloween to your rule-following costume-hating nail-biting little one?

And now, for some book recommendations for Halloween! I have yet to find a children’s Halloween book that references this Rite of Reversal, so if you know of one, please send it my way. I might just need to put on my creative-cap and write one myself. But for other Halloween books we love, look no further!

Since I think some of you just prefer Amazon links to the books I recommend, below you will find Amazon-affiliate links to the books recommended in the photo at the beginning of this post. Shopping through my affiliate links earns me a few cents (seriously, I’m not into blogging for the money LOL).