BEST WITCHES

Twenty-four mostly new poems to celebrate the many-faced holiday—ranging from the sprightly and easily accessible ("The Magic House": "We should have known when we tasted the eaves,/Breaking them off like toffee. . .But it was only when we saw the witch/That we knew we were in deep, deep trouble") to the comically gruesome ("The Fossilot," about a fossil that consumes the scientists who have reassembled it) to the thought-provoking ("The wand's a symbol/of a treasure./It's heart—not hand—/one has to train") to a touch of real evil ("The Witch's Cauldron": "Strong as a wish,/Hard as hate,/Full as a moon,/Brutal as fate"). With full-color illustrations on every double spread, Primavera ably reflects the poems' many moods, making the popular images funny and idiosyncratic enough to be interesting—and tempering the frightful so that it's scary but not too frightening. Good-quality, lively entertainment.