the ride-by-nights

“‘Neath Charlie’s Wain they twitter and tweet,

And away they swarm ‘neath the Dragon’s feet,

With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway,

And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way.”

In The Ride-by-Nights, children go trick-or-treating on Halloween evening as a group of mischievous little witches fly through the fantastic night sky above them.  I love getting caught up in the momentum of Walter de la Mare's poem, read aloud or silently.  Carolina Rabei captures the brilliance and energy of de la Mare’s words in her enchanting illustrations, which bear their own kind of bewitching magic.

Published by Faber & Faber.