The Best Halloween Ever

By Barbara Robinson

Lionsgate released a live action movie version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, directed by Dallas Jenkins of The Chosen and featuring actors Judy Greer, Lauren Graham, Elizabeth Tabish, and Pete Holmes, now at a theater near you!

The Herdmans are back so get ready for the Halloween of a lifetime that will have readers of all ages laughing!

The worst kids in the history of the world return to terrorize Halloween this time, and their mischief has readers in fits of laughter. Kids will be raking in this funny book—now in paperback—faster than candy this season.

• Perfect for Halloween reading
• A charming cozy seasonal pick

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062076946

Barbara Robinson

Barbara Robinson has written several popular books for children, including My Brother Louis Measures Worms, The Best School Year Ever, The Best Halloween Ever, and the enormously popular bestselling novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, first published in 1972, which was made into a classic TV movie and on which this book was based. The play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is produced annually in theaters, schools, and churches all over the world. Ms. Robinson has two daughters and three grandchildren.

Book preview

Introduction

It isn’t fair! Charlie said, and he was right.

Having no Halloween is the worst thing that could happen! he said, but he was wrong.

There was one worse thing, and we heard about it in the morning announcements at school....

1

It was the principal’s idea, but it was the Herdmans’ fault, according to my mother.

Don’t blame Mr. Crabtree, she said. It wasn’t Mr. Crabtree who piled eight kids into the revolving door at the bank. It wasn’t Mr. Crabtree who put the guppies on the pizza. It was one of the Herdmans, or some of the Herdmans, or all of the Herdmans … so if there’s no Halloween this year, it’s their fault!

Of course the Herdmans couldn’t cancel Halloween everywhere. That’s what I told my little brother, Charlie. Charlie kept saying, I can’t believe this!—as if it was unusual for the Herdmans to mess things up for everybody else.

It wasn’t unusual. There were six Herdmans—Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys—plus their crazy cat, which was missing one eye and half its tail and most of its fur and any good nature it ever had. It bit the mailman and it bit the Avon lady, and after that it had to be kept on a chain, which is what most people wanted to do with the Herdmans.

I used to wonder why their mother didn’t do that with them, but, after all, there were six of them and only one of her. She didn’t hang around the house much anyway, and you couldn’t really blame her—even my mother said you couldn’t really blame her.

They lived over a garage at the bottom of Sproul Hill and their yard was full of whatever used to be in the garage—old tires and rusty tools and broken-down bicycles and the trunk of a car (no car, just the trunk)—and I guess the neighbors would have complained about the mess except that all the neighbors had moved somewhere else.

Lucky for them! Charlie grumbled. They don’t have to go to school with Leroy like I do.

Like we all do, actually. The Herdmans were spread out through Woodrow Wilson School, one to each grade, and I guess if there had been any more of them they would have wiped out the school and everybody in it.

As it was they’d wiped out Flag Day when they stole the flag, and Arbor Day when they stole the tree. They had ruined fire drills and school assemblies and PTA bake sales, and they let all the kindergarten mice out of their cage and then filled up the cage with guinea pigs.

The whole kindergarten got hysterical about this. Some kids thought the guinea pigs ate their mice. Some kids thought the guinea pigs were their mice, grown gigantic overnight. They were all scared and sobbing and hiccuping, and the janitor had to come and remove the guinea pigs.

All the mice got away, so I guess if you were a mouse you would be crazy about the Herdmans. I don’t know whether mice get together and one of them says, How was your day?—but if that happens, these mice would say, Terrific!

So was that it, Beth? Charlie asked me. The mice and the guinea pigs? Was that, like, the last straw, and then everybody said, ‘All right, that’s it, the last straw … no Halloween’? Was that it?

I don’t think so, I said. I think it was everything else.

There had been a lot of everything else because Labor Day was late, so school started late. Parents had an extra week to buy their kids school shoes and get their hair cut; kids had an extra week to finish the fort or tree house or bike trail or whatever else they’d been building since June; and teachers had an extra week to pray they wouldn’t have any Herdmans, I guess… . And of course the Herdmans had an extra week, too, to tear up whatever they’d missed during the summer.

That turned out to be a lot and, as usual with the Herdmans, it wasn’t always things you would expect them to do.

The police guard at the bank said that he had seen them come in. "Can’t miss them!" he said. So I went right over and stood by the big fish tank. I figure, if I see a bank robber coming I’ll defend the money, but if I see those kids coming I’ll defend the fish. He shook his head and sighed. Didn’t occur to me to hang around the revolving door.

Nobody got hurt and everybody got out all right, but they had to call the fire department to take the door apart, and

Reviews for The Best Halloween Ever

[jfranklin592262 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the third book in the Herdmans series.....I've not gotten my hands on the second one yet, I'm waiting until I find a vintage copy, not a reprint.

The first book....The Best Christmas Pageant Ever...was written in 1972 ....this third one was written in 2004....and the huge time jump is very apparent. The entire vibe of the book is different....nicer, more politically/socially correct....not as raunchy or crass.

Robinson made a few errors in this one....she apparently forgot that for this series to work, and the Herdmans to still be children, we still need to be in the 70s....there were elements here that were definitely inaccurate for that time period ie; no child would have been paid $8 to babysit their brother for 2 hrs in the early 70s...same said little brother was dressed as a Chia pet...which wasn't even invented until 1977, and didn't gain widespread popularity until the 1982 release of the Chia ram...so a child could not have been dressed in this costume in the early 70s. There are some other blunders here as well, like candy mentions that wouldn't have been popular in this time period, etc.

I just feel this story wasn't as strong or humorous as the first....which is a huge disappointment for me because Halloween being my favorite holiday, I was very excited to read this.

Overall ... a cute and entertaining read....and still a recommended read for Halloween lovers and those familiar with this series....but, doesn't meet the expectations set by the first book.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as much heart as the first, or even the second. More for laughs. Only bother if you just really like the series... def. don't start here.

[mutantpudding · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't read this installment of the series when I was a kid and now reading it as an adult I didn't really like it. The story isn't as strong and the Herdmans do stuff I would consider legit bad (killing animals) instead of just kid bad (stealing food, ect). I also didn't like the attempts at modernization like upping Luellas babysitting wages from 50 cents (in best school year) to 8 dollars! Didn't make a lot of sense.

[theodore.zachariades · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first two of Robinson's "Herdman's Tales" were, in my opinion, exceptionally well written and extremely funny. This one had all the earmarks of Robinson's touch but something was lacking in the punch! My boys and I felt it was not as good as the others. Still she is a very creative writer and it will not be a complete waste of time. If you have not read any of her stories about the infamous Herdman children, this will whet your appetite for more. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, is simply superb!

[jacobseifert-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Written incredibly well for a children's book with such depth of detail that it left me, an adult, in awe of Robinson's skill. Inventive and fun, The Best Halloween Ever is a joyful ride with pleasant tension, a cast of fully-realized characters, and many moments that make the book sing.

[allawishus_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved The Best Christmas Pageant Ever when I was a kid, so it was fun to catch up on the adventures of the Herdmans! The author has a wonderful grasp on a mature child's voice and thought processes. Really cute, but not as touching as "Christmas Pageant" of course.

[bigorangemichael_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After creating havoc at Christmas, the Herdmans are back. This time, their previous antics lead the town to cancel Halloween since the holiday has devolved into little more than the Herdman family laying in wait to beat up and steal unsuspecting trick-or-treaters candy.

This sequel to "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" is a bit of a one-joke story, spread out over the course of a hundred or so pages. The central conflict is the Herdman's have led the town to cancel Halloween, which makes all the kids upset. Then, the town hatches a plan to have Halloween at the local school so they can control what's going on and in the hopes that the Herdmans won't find out or show up.

The strength of "Christmas Pageant" was while the Herdmans were the antagonists of the story, they had a human side and flashes of being more than just a bunch of surly bullies. And that's not quite the case here, where the entire book is spent talking about how horrible they are. It does lead to a nice little moment at the end involving the Herdmans and years of stolen Halloween candy, but the moments leading up to it are a bit repetitive and difficult to stomach.

Had I not read "Best Christmas Pageant" I might be more inclined to like this novel. Or maybe the big problem is this book is competing with the memory of enjoying "Pageant" in my youth.