Halloween

Jack-o-lantern

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Halloween includes cooking, decorations, and children’s fiction.

For fiction search for horror tales and ghost stories.

Halloween is celebrated on 31 October. The name is a abbreviated version of ‘All Hallows’ Even’, the evening before All Hallows’ Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November. ‘Hallow’ is an Old English word for ‘holy person’.

In the northern hemisphere it is autumn/fall and so despite its being spring in New Zealand, traditional symbols include pumpkins and other late harvest produce.

In the United States, a traditional Halloween activity is Trick-or-treating. Costumed children proceed from house to house, asking for treats such as sweets with the question, ‘Trick or treat?’

About Halloween

Halloween: Facts and Misinformation: From the Religious Tolerance website - find out more about the intersecting religious elements of this period which including Samhain, All Saints Day, All Souls Day (the day of the Dead), Halloween itself and Reformation day.
Halloween - How Stuff Works: Informative history and explanation of various Halloween traditions.
Halloween - Wikipedia: Halloween around the world, symbols and religious viewpoints.
Halloween - The History Channel: Find out more about the origins of Halloween, spooky recipes, and watch some creepy video clips.
Halloween on the Net - holidays.net: Fun Halloween things including dancing skeletons, Halloween stories, pictures for kids to print and colour, and some Halloween recipes.
Halloween: All about Halloween including costumes, decorations, links to other websites and safety.

Scary Stuff

Halloween indulgences can include scary movies such as John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). The Internet Movie Database has a section on Horror movies including a list of the luminaries of the genre such as Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Scary movies in our collection include Frankenstein, Black Sheep, Drag me to hell,Misery, Corpse Bride, Sleepy Hollow, and The Amityville Horror.

If you like scary reading, see our list of newest horror titles every month on our New Titles page, try our If You Like... Horror guide, or for award winning horror the Bram Stoker Awards list.

Halloween Resources

If you are dressing up for Halloween, see our guide to costumes and wearable art.

Search our catalogue for books etc about Halloween cookery & decorations
Halloween projects at Make magazine
Halloween food and decorations at Fabulous Living
The Source links to articles and other information. We recommend World Book Web.

Halloween celebrations in New Zealand

Search the Papers database for articles about Halloween.

Read historical Halloween celebrations recorded in the newspapers available on Papers Past.