Madeline's Halloween & Other Spooky Tales on DVD

With Halloween just a week away, we were in the need of something to help set the mood for trick-or-treating. The newest Madeline DVD release was perfect for just that! This time the twelve little residents of an old house in Paris, covered with vines, are off on some spook filled adventures. Watch as they encounter ghouls, mummies, and a haunted castle!

Madeline's Halloween & Other Spooky Tales is 110 minutes and has a suggested retail of $12.99 and features five episode:

• Madeline's Halloween
• Madeline And The Mean, Nasty, Horrible Hats
• Madeline And The Mummy
• Madeline And The Haunted Castle
• Madeline And the Spider Lady

In the title episode Madeline, her classmates, and Miss Clavel are off to visit their pen pals in New York. Once there, they find things are not as they recalled, some thing seems off, and a whole lot scarier.

Boo! It's only Halloween, their American pen pals explain, a holiday then unknown in France. They show Madeline and her friends how much fun the holiday is and introduce them to other things that are different in the US like food and music.

Both sets of girls get dressed up and spend a fun night trick or treating. Only to find a mysterious pair of valuable spider shaped earrings in Madeline's bag, when they get back. What to do? Well of course plucky Madeline will find the owner and it involves a mysterious Spider Lady...and the requisite happy ending.

My daughter tends to be a little bit of a scardy cat, but Madeline's Halloween & Other Spooky Tales is filled with cute little songs, darling French accents, and adventures in far flung places is charmingly sweet and mild enough for her and other young viewers to enjoy. While not all the stories revolve around Halloween, they all do indeed involve an element of of spooky fun.

It is a good video for parents looking for a seasonal video with a literature connection. Fans of the books by Ludwig Bemelmann will find a lot to like and it's a good value for almost two hours of running time. While there are no DVD extras or a fancy menu, a lot of times I find those to be rather promo heavy or just trailers..i.e. commercials, so I don't miss them at all. I'd rather have more actual videos and stories, and Madeline's Halloween & Other Spooky Tales definitely delivers!



Disclosure: A reviewer's copy of this title was provided, and this post relates my own personal and unbiased opinions and experiences with it.