Hazel and the Spooky Season

This is Hazy Dell Press's most full-throated celebration of Halloween to-date—and that's saying a lot! While celebrating the spooky joys of autumn and Halloween, Hazel and the Spooky Season is simultaneously a celebration of self-love and honoring who we are, however unique we may be. Hazel's journey is one of learning to love yourself and trusting that there are others out there who will love you, too. Through the course of the story, Hazel learns an important social emotional lesson: if we don't proudly declare who we are, how will we ever find kindred spirits in our community? The central character of Ronnie Pumpkinseed is a spooky homage to the American folklore hero, Johnny Appleseed. While Johnny wears a tin pot on his head, Ronnie wears a cast iron skillet. And while Johnny spreads appleseeds and Christianity, Ronnie has a different set of beliefs to proselytize: the spooky traditions and iconography of Halloween. The author was inspired to write this story after reading Michael Chabon's GQ article, My Son, The Prince of Fashion. In particular, this passage: "You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you and if you are lucky they even, on occasion, manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough. Abe had not been dressing up, styling himself, for all these years because he was trying to prove how different he was from everyone else. He did it in the hope of attracting the attention of somebody else—somewhere, someday—who was the same. He was not flying his freak flag; he was sending up a flare, hoping for rescue, for company in the solitude of his passion."