The Herdmans plus Halloween have always spelled disaster. Every year these six kids — the worst in the history of Woodrow Wilson School, and possibly even the world — wreak havoc on the whole town. They steal candy, spray-paint kids, and take anything that's not nailed down.

Now the mayor has had it. He's decided to cancel Halloween. There won't be any Herdmans to contend with this year, but there won't be any candy, either. And what's Halloween without candy? And without trick-or-treating? The Herdmans manage to turn the worst Halloween ever into the best Halloween ever in this uproarious sequel to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

"Fans of Robinson's previous tales about the Herdman family (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever; The Best School Year Ever) may be disappointed in this latest installment — mostly because the six hellions are absent for the majority of the novel. Of course, this is the point: the mayor, the principal and the parents of the students at Woodrow Wilson School unite in a citywide effort for a 'Herdman-free Halloween.' The mayor banishes candy from the stores and trick-or-treating on the streets, in favor of a school bash on October 31 that, in narrator Beth Bradley's words, more resembles 'Back-to-School Night.' The six siblings that wreaked havoc on the town and its citizens in books past also supplied the narratives' main source of energy and humor, and without them, Beth, her brother, Charlie, and their classmates seem to be simply waiting for the other shoe to drop. As they (and readers) anticipate the events of the final chapters to see what the Herdmans have in store, the book reads like one big build-up, and the holiday itself is, unfortunately, an anticlimax. Ages 8-up." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Barbara Robinson was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and now makes her home in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Allegheny College, Ms. Robinson also received an honorary doctorate of letters from Allegheny.

Ms. Robinson has written several books for children, including My Brother Louis Measures Worms, The Best School Year Ever and the critically acclaimed and enormously popular The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is now a classic TV movie, and the play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is produced annually in theaters, schools, and churches all over the country.

Ms. Robinson has two daughters, Carolyn and Marjorie, and three grandchildren, Tomas, Marcos, and Lucas.

In Her Own Words ...

I grew up in a small southern Ohio town, and began writing when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, as a hobby and for fun. I'm happy to say it's still fun today, probably because every book I write has to be a book that I also want very much to read. I'm like the reader who turns the page to see what happens next - except, of course, that the page is blank. But I then get to fill it up with whatever seems exciting, funny, scary, happy or sad ... and with characters who become as real to me as my next-door-neighbors - so real, in fact, that sometimes they just step in and show me 'what happens next.'

Since I'm one of those writers whose story ideas spring more from people than from plot, I spend a lot of time with my characters, so they tend to be people I like to spend time with - even the wild and woolly Herdmans, who inhabit two of my books, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and The Best School Year Ever. I have a special fondness for the Herdman adventures, probably because boys and girls have told me that these are their favorites, and that's the most important thing to me.

Since leaving my small town - though I don't think writers ever really leave the place where they grew up; certainly the flavor of a small town is present in everything I write - I've lived in Pittsburgh, Boston, and, now, in a suburb of Philadelphia where I write, read a lot (boys' and girls' books mostly because they're the best), walk two or three miles a day, watch baseball games and, when the mood is on me, bake terrific cookies!