Liturgical Year · Ages 5-8 · 26 pages

All Hallows’ Eve: The True Story of Halloween

by Kyle Hancock

Pumpkins grin on every porch, and Sofía Delgado can hardly wait. But when Abuela asks what Halloween means, Sofía doesn’t know — and the answer is older and better than she ever imagined. Halloween is All Hallows’ Eve: the evening before All Saints’ Day, the night the Church has kept for more than a thousand years for her friends in heaven. While Abuela sews Sofía’s costume, she tells the true story — the first Christians who remembered their brave friends who had died for Jesus, the Pope in Rome who blessed a chapel for all the saints, the children in England long ago who went door to door for little spiced soul cakes and promised a prayer for the dead in return, and the turnip lanterns of Ireland that became our pumpkins. Then Sofía goes out as Saint Thérèse, with her little brother Mateo as Saint Juan Diego, to a parish full of small saints, to the neighbors’ doors — and to one dark porch, where Papá tells her why the saints aren’t afraid of the dark: Jesus died, Jesus rose, and Jesus won. In the morning the bells ring for All Saints’ Day. Father wears white, Sofía looks up at Saint Thérèse in colored glass, and when the Host is lifted she thinks: heaven and earth are in this room together, and all the saints are here too. On the church steps she asks the question every child should ask — “Mamá, can I be a saint?” — and hears the answer: that is exactly what God made you for. All Hallows’ Eve: The True Story of Halloween gives Halloween back to Catholic children in warm watercolor illustrations and simple read-aloud words — a present-day family, the real history told honestly, and the saints alive with God, cheering us on and praying for us. The best costume of all, it turns out, is the one every baptized child was given already: the white robe of a saint. Written for ages 4 to 8 — a read-aloud for the youngest, and a first book about the saints for children who are starting to read on their own. Inside you’ll find a Scripture page from the Book of Revelation (the great multitude “from every nation, race, people, and tongue”); the story told in short lines little ones can follow; A Note for Families about what Halloween means, where the feast came from, what historians actually say about “pagan Halloween,” what the Church teaches about the saints, and how to talk with children about the dark and the devil; a prayer to pray together, ending with the Litany’s “All holy men and women, Saints of God, pray for us”; Talk About It Together, questions for after the story; and a page about All Saints’ Day for the grown-up reading aloud, with what is documented and what is disputed, clearly marked. Feast days: November 1, All Saints (a holy day of obligation); October 1, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; December 9, Saint Juan Diego.