“One late October night, as I rounded the corner, a carob tree lowered his branches, and as quick as a bee sting, seized my body whole, and lifted me high up in the air. Into the crook of a gnarled branch I was placed, as the carob trees howled their ghastly tune …” So wrote Andrew Pejack of Los Altos in his tale, “The Haunted Trees of Carob Lane,” our pick for the best submitted spooky story for 2005. Pejack will receive a gift certificate to Linden Tree Children’s Recordings & Books in Los Altos.

Other honorable mentions, including those we failed to find space for in the print edition but presented online at www.latc.com: “The Monster in the Closet” by Rebecca Andrews; “Halloween Dancers” by Howard Jarmy; Siddharth Shankar’s “Deadly Halloween”; and “The Ghost” by Katie Kirsch.

A big thanks to all who participated in this year’s spooky story roundup. Each story was unique and imaginative, and a winner in its own right.

- Editor Bruce Barton