Snow Surprise! Snowmen at Halloween by Caralyn and Mark Buehner

One autumn day it began to snow.

We went outside and made some snowmen standing in a row.

The surprising October snow came just as the children were unpacking their box of Halloween costumes, and instead of the usual scarves and toboggan caps, they get a different idea!

Soon those snowmen were the scariest EVER!

Leaving their snowmen seasonally costumed as a witch, a ghost, a vampire, and a pirate decorating their yard, the kids leave for a Halloween party and trick or treating in the neighborhood.

But the costumed snowmen can't resist the fun. They join the parade of masked and dressed-up kids sweeping through the festive streets of the village, ready to brave the hay-bail maze, play games, and beg for treats. The disguised snowmen fill their Trick-or-Treat buckets quickly.

And when the Jack o' lantern candles sputter out, the porch lights begin to go off, and the kids make their way home, there are their snowmen still standing in a row, wearing happy but... strangely different smiles.

What had they been up to? We guess we'll never know.

IT WARMED UP DURING THE NIGHT

AND MELTED ALL THE SNOW.

The next morning the snowmen are gone, but leaving behind Halloween treats spelling out a jolly message:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

An early season snowstorm allows those jolly snowmen created by Caralyn and Mark Buehner to get in on the Halloween fun in their just-published Snowmen at Halloween (Dial Books, 2019). With author Caralyn Beuhner providing the cheery rhymes and artist Mark Buehner supplying his signature jovial snowmen, this top-selling spooky season story is a surprising hit. Says Publishers Weekly, "Buehner's oil-on-acrylic illustrations feature a playful balance between nighttime shadows and twinkling jack-o-lanterns, and young readers will enjoy searching for each of the roly-poly friends (a rabbit, a robot, and a rowboat among them) on every page."

Other snowmen stories by Mark and Caralyn Buehner are Snowmen at Night (Storytown Library, Grade K, Story 8), Snowmen at Christmas Snowmen at Work, and Snowmen at Play. (See reviews here.)