The creepy fun begins when a brother and sister bring home a plastic skeleton from the harvest fair. High up in a sycamore tree, the skeleton dances with glee. The plastic bones of Fred McFee click and clack in the wind. Once Halloween is over, the bones will be put away until next year, but where are they? The children search and search; there’s nothing to be found but a grave beneath the tree. What could have happened? Where did Fred McFee go? He’s gone! Or is he? Check out this spooktactular tale for a frightfully good scare.

The Bottom Line: This is a spooky tale for kids ages 5 - 8. The rhythmic story is great for reading aloud, and the colorful illustrations in scratchboard and watercolor add to the creepy fun. Highly recommended Halloween reading, but keep your little ones close because this tale might be a bit scary for some tiny tots.

This review also appears at the Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog. ( )

Told in rhythmic rhyme, this spooky Halloween tale relates how the young-boy narrator and his sister bring home a plastic skeleton and hang it in their sycamore tree, as a holiday decoration. They soon begin to notice, however, that the bones of Fred McFee (as the skeleton is soon named) have an odd effect on their animal companions, scaring them away from the tree. Then, the morning after Halloween, they discover that the skeleton has vanished...

Having read quite a few eerie tales from author Eve Bunting - The Banshee, Scary, Scary Halloween, Ghost's Hour, Spook's Hour - I fully expected to enjoy some delicious thrills while perusing The Bones of Fred McFee, and I was not disappointed! From the opening page - "There's a skeleton high in our sycamore tree, / High as high can be. / He was hung up there by my sister and me, / High in our sycamore tree" - the rhyming text here builds the sense of suspense and feeling of dread quite nicely. The accompanying artwork by Kurt Cyrus, created using scratchboard and watercolor, perfectly complement the text, and adds to the chilling sense of unease. Recommended to anyone lookinf for delightfully creepy Halloween fare for the picture-book set. ( )

Mixed feelings on this one. I liked the rhyming text and the spooky tone to the story that could draw in older kids. There was something about the premise that didn't sit with me right and just ended up coming off as creepy versus enjoyably scary. ( )

"The Bones of Fred Mcfee" starts with a brother and sister buying a plastic skeleton from the harvest fair and naming it Fred Mcfee. Many things are changing since they hang the skeleton in their sycamore tree and everyone and everything is acting strange. Their dog howls on Halloween night and the next day the skeleton is vanished from the tree and is buried right under the tree. The kids don't know who or what could have done this and it remains a mystery. Eve Bunting uses rhyming in this book to paint a picture of all the scary things happening. This would be a great book for a read aloud because you are able to change the tone of your voice when reading different pages. There are also many small details that you may miss seeing the first time you read like the rotting pumpkins and the dog acting weird that may help you predict what will happen next. Overall this would be a great book to introduce in the month of October. ( )

Great Halloween read. Atmospheric without being too scary. ( )