Goblin Moon

The pale “Old Goblin Moon” presides over Halloween with an enigmatic smile, “creating strange shadows” as a human family trick-or-treats. After the people retire, it beckons the littlest goblins to make mischief in and around a child’s house: “The moon calls them out./ I think I can hear/ the rustling and chattering/ as they get near.” At first, the girl cowers in her bed with numerous stuffed toys, but as small goblins storm the yard, then the house, she soon takes control: “Go BACK to your MOON!” Realizing that goblins need Halloween treats, too, she shares her Halloween candy, luring the goblins out from under the sofa cushions and inside the piano and leading them “back to your goblin-y fathers and mothers”—who seem every bit as eager as their adult human counterparts for Halloween’s end. Rogers’s landscape of undulating lines and plush shapes bathed in cool blue light evokes a mood that’s more extraterrestrial than autumnal, lending this Halloween story an otherworldly air. Ages 4–8. [em](July) [/em]