The Halloween Tree

The list

1. 01

   The Halloween Tree 1972

   Fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury tracing history of Samhain and Halloween.

Where to watch: The Halloween Tree (1993 animated film) · Untitled Warner Bros. film adaptation (in development)

Facts from the original

• The Halloween Tree is a 1972 fantasy novel by American author Ray Bradbury.
• The novel traces the history of Samhain and Halloween.
• The novel was adapted as a 1993 film.
• An annual Halloween Tree has been exhibited at Disneyland in California since 2007.
• The novel originated in 1967 as the screenplay for an unproduced collaboration with animator Chuck Jones.
• Bradbury later wrote and narrated Hanna-Barbera's 1993 feature-length animated version of the novel for television.
• Bradbury won an Emmy Award for the animated adaptation.
• A longer 2005 limited-edition 'author's preferred text' was compiled and edited by Donn Albright and included both the 1967 and 1993 screenplays.
• Bradbury dedicated The Halloween Tree to Man'ha Garreau-Dombasle (1898–1999), a French writer and translator.
• Man'ha Garreau-Dombasle was the maternal grandmother of actress and singer Arielle Dombasle and wife of Maurice Garreau-Dombasle, a French ambassador to Mexico.
• The book is illustrated by Joe Mugnaini, one of Bradbury's many collaborators over the years.
• In 2015, an alternative edition featuring the illustrations of Gris Grimly was produced.
• Bradbury wrote the script for the 1993 film The Halloween Tree; the script won the 1994 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.
• A film adaptation of the book is in development at Warner Bros. with Will Dunn screenwriting and Charlie Morrison overseeing the project.
• On October 31, 2007, Bradbury attended the presentation of a Halloween Tree at Disneyland in California, included as part of its annual park-wide Halloween decorations every year.
• Halloween trees have also become a fixture of the Disney Cruise Line's Halloween celebrations.
• The novel's plot follows a group of eight boys trick-or-treating on Halloween whose ninth friend, Pipkin, is whisked away on a journey that could determine whether he lives or dies.
• The boys pursue Pipkin with the help of the mysterious Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud through ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek, and ancient Roman cultures, Celtic druidism, Notre-Dame Cathedral in medieval Paris, and The Day of the Dead in Mexico.
• The Halloween Tree, with its branches laden with jack-o'-lanterns, serves as a metaphor for the historical confluence of these traditions.
• The book was published by Alfred A. Knopf in hardcover and paperback, runs 160 pp, with ISBN 0-375-80301-7.
• A related list is the Bibliography of Halloween.