I didn’t do it intentionally, but I read a very Halloweeny book right around Halloween.
The Night of Wishes by Michael Ende
Grade: C
In The Night of Wishes, sorcerer Beelzebub Preposteror has not met his contractual obligations to wreak mayhem on the world, and now his boss (the Big Bad) is about to make him pay. If he doesn’t do a whole lot of horrible by the stroke of midnight December 31st, he can kiss his tuchas good-bye. How fortunate that he finds a spell that can save him. Now the only thing standing in his way is his spoiled pet cat, Mauricio di Mauro.
Michael Ende is the author of The Neverending Story, a book which I thought was so-so, and Momo, which I really enjoyed. I therefore expected this book to fall somewhere between so-so and enjoyable. I was surprised to find, after special-ordering it, that it doesn’t even fall on that end of the scale. The bad guys were too bad. The good guys were not good enough. The plot was poorly thought out. The prose was hard to read. In short, it stunk. Steer clear of this one, lovers of children’s books.