A Halloween book

I am plugging another book, this time a book I read, over and over again. It is a French book which I am not certain if it has been translated in English, so it might seem silly that I am plugging it in one of my English posts. But it is a book that every Halloween aficionado should have, if only because of the lush, beautiful images of Jean-Baptiste Monge . Patrick Jézéquel is the author. The full name of the book is Halloween: Sorcières, Lutins, Fantômes et autres Croquemitaines. Translate, it is Halloween: witches, imps, ghosts and other bogeymen. It is mainly about Halloween, its traditions, its creatures and of course its Celtic origins. You find the story of Jack O'Lantern (and Jack is on many pages, in various forms), a lot of Celtic folklore, many, many legends and tales of Brittany, but also from other places. It also talks about other holidays, including Christmas, showing its darker side.

And there are the images. Gorgeous, rich, unapologetically violent and sinister: ogres holding butcher's knifes, Jack running after a chubby child wielding a hatchet, an old witch handing a suspicious apple to two children, a lake monster holding close a crying toddler, about to submerge him in the water, imps surrounding a blond , playing various instruments and keeping her awake, while she clutches her teddy rabbit... Evil can be merely mischievous, more scary than dangerous, a nuisance, it can also be murderous. I love this book because the images illustrate our childhood fears, it gives them true colours and shapes, it makes them beautiful.