The ideal costume ...

At this point, I could be a round pumpkin (23 weeks along ... I'm "gestating")! But since I can't bring myself to pull on green, gut-pinching leotards and an orange top, I'm taking the easy road ... "Mom-To-Be".
Ha!
Actually, I'll be busy doing a STORYTELLING activity in "la Cuadra" -- a monthly art and culture activity in which we close down two streets and have exhibitions, music, and more. And since tomorrow is dedicated to children, we're reading ABIYOYO -- but adapting it to Colombian traditions. And the kids get to act out the parts of the father, boy, Abiyoyo, and all the animals he eats -- as well as the townspeople. It will be chaotic. But I hope the kids have fun and learn a few key words in English: RUN! RUN! ABIYOYO IS HERE! and GO AWAY!
But to keep with tradition, and since this is my favorite time of year, I did carve my pumpkins and ate "Boo Soup" at my favorite pizza place. (Pumpkin soup with fried zucchini).

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Heidi Ayarbe

Halloween Costume

So what am I going as tomorrow? How about a taxi cab driver? I'll be ferrying my kids and their friends to their various Halloween appointments while I stay home and answer a few knocks on the door. As my kids have gotten older, I find myself stepping back. I am no longer needed to partake, or am I even welcome. But to amuse myself, I think I'll don some cat ears and orange earrings to work and scare my students who are already scared enough—and not because of Halloween. Tomorrow is portfolio check before midterms. Muahhhhhhahaaaaaa!

My Favorite Halloween Costume

I thought of all these fictional characters like the Wicked Witch of the West out of the Wizard of Oz or one of Roald Dahl's evil witches in The Witches, but my mind kept returning to reality. Tomorrow I'll be wearing my $1.99 black pointed hat from Long's Drugstore, my green makeup and scraggly teeth from the 99 cent store, a long black skirt and a velvet opera cape with satin braid that belonged to some weird ancestor of mine....Dracula? I'll be reading spooky stories to 4th and 5th graders at the Fifteenth Street School in San Pedro and hoping to scare them mightily. These children mostly come from Spanish speaking homes and many of their families absolutely believe in ghosts so if I do my job right, they'll all be shaking in their boots!

Favorite Villian

What an awesome topic. I love bad guys. They are the most fun to read. My reigning favorite would have to be the White Witch. Jadis plagues Aslan's new land, plunging it into an endless winter, preventing Christmas and Santa Claus from coming. Jadis followed Andrew in The Magician's Nephew from her homeland of Charn where she had killed her sister and all of her people to rule over rubble. She needed a new thriving land. She is chillingly evil and will kill any to get what she wants. I can just imagine her shrill shriek when she screams and how honeyed her voice must sound when she lures Edmund with Turkish Delight. Her garden of petrified creatures would give an strong heart pause upon entering her fortress. She commands not only weather but other elements of nature with the same power that Aslan himself wields. If not for Aslan's understanding of love and sacrifice and all that sappy happy stuff, Narnia might still be hers. To me, witches have long been among the creepiest of villians. The Wicked Witch of the East terrified me in the movies. I mean come on she was green, with monkeys, eww monkeys. But in my opinion the White Witch rules them all.

Mandy

Lord Voldemort is my favorite villain.

"You carry him," Voldemort said. "He will be nice and visible in your arms, will he not? Pick up your little friend, Hagrid. And the glasses--put on the glasses--he must be recognizable--"

A great villain has to be fleshed out just as much as the protagonist. If not, who would be frightened? Who would be compelled to turn the page to see if the bad guy gets the good guy. He is the dark to the light, the yin to the yang. The villain balances the story, he creates conflict. I chose Lord Voldemort because I love him almost as much as I love Harry. Without Tom Riddle there would have never been a famous orphan. Without him there never would have been 'the boy who lived' or a friend I could laugh and cry with late into the night when I read each of the books.

Any character who must not be named is intriguing. But my very favorite part is that Harry and Voldemort are intertwined, each is so much a part of the other that neither can live peacefully as long as the other lives. Voldemort is the dark cloud that hangs over Harry. Who or what is your dark cloud?

I can only hope I will create a villain that comes even remotely close to Lord Voldemort, with the layers and depth that he has.

Trish

By the pricking of my thumbs. . .

So, I like lots of villains, really. I like ones that scare me, I like the ones in mystery books (when you don’t know who they are until the end,) I like goofy, inept ones . . . it’s hard to pick a favorite.

But Halloween is next week, and that has long been my favorite holiday. October is my favorite month in general, and Halloween is the perfect end to it. So, in honor of Halloween, I’ll say for now that my acme of bad-guy-ness is Mr. Dark from Ray Bradbury’s classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.

The first time I read that book, it was a grey, windy day in October in Indiana – the kind where enormous sycamore leaves are cartwheeling across the lawn like scared animals and the clouds are low and heavy. I could feel that carnival blowing into town. Cooger and Dark were somewhere out there, I was sure of it.

And he knew. Mr. Dark knew exactly what to say to people, what it was that they wanted most, what one thing would make them screw up so royally that he’d own them for all of eternity. He had all those tattoos (nothing against those – I have some myself!) that turned out to be reminders of all the people he’d conquered (that’s the creepy part.) It made me shiver. Plus, in this day of too much, too gory, too depraved, like those Saw movies that I can’t watch, or half of the adult horror books out there that I can’t read . . . Mr. Dark is a pure villain. He’s scary without being gross. His possibilities are what terrify me about him. I love that.

So in honor of Halloween – Mr. Dark. Best Villain. Shudder.

C

What a bunch of nauseating little warts you are!

Matilda's vicious, child-hating headmistress Agatha Trunchbull of "Crunchem Hall Primary School" tops my list of favorite villains because she's so utterly deplorable, despicable, and repulsive.
She's a former Olympian (whom I doubt would pass a drug-screening test these days), expert in the hammer throw -- as she practices on her students. Her hero is Wackford Squeers (the horrific headmaster in Dicken's Nicholas Nickleby), and she loathes children.

I don't like small people. I can't for the life of me understand why they take so long to grow up. I think they do it on purpose.

And who else in children's lit has a chokey?!?
I love how Roald Dahl creates these characters that are so unbelievable, we have to believe. Even Matilda and her friends know that if they go home with stories about Miss Trunchbull, their parents would never believe them.
Would you?
And there's absolutely nothing redeemable about her which goes against everything we're taught to do as writers when we create characters. And it works. It goes to show that if you know how to break the rules creating a character that is absolutely enthralling, your readers will jump in with you!
Roald Dahl is an artist and Agatha Trunchbull is one of his masterpieces! (Or, should I say, a piece of work?!)

Heidi Ayarbe