Halloween A B C

Halloween ABC (Eve Merriam, illustrations by Lane Smith) is a darkly playful alphabet book of twenty-six short poems, each keyed to a Halloween word. Published in 1987, the volume pairs Merriam’s rhythmic, often macabre verses with Smith’s moody, painterly images; the illustrations (oil on board) use shadow and a restricted palette to heighten the book’s eerie, carnivallike tone.

The book is not an alphabet primer but a themed collection that treats ordinary and odd things — apples, masks, vipers, icicles — as catalysts for slyly unsettling poems. Its mixture of humor and explicitly grim imagery drew praise for originality and design, and also repeated controversy: Halloween ABC appears on lists of frequently challenged books (1990s), most often for references to demons and violent images. The text was reissued in 2002 under the title Spooky ABC; despite the protests, the book remains a striking example of how verse and visual art can turn the alphabet into a sustained mood piece.