Haunted Halloween Holiday by Robbie and Michael Cheadle

Published August 19th 2022 by TSL Publications

About Haunted Halloween Holiday: Count Sugular is delighted when the Sugarpop Bats invite his family to a Halloween party at the Haunted House. He and his wife, Witch Honey, decide to hire a caravan and enjoy a weekend away with their family.

Includes some fun limericks to introduce the various characters.

You can find the book trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fr5OxyUfd4

5 Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Those of you who follow my blog, know that I love reading to my grandchildren. Robbie Cheadle also knows that and generously offered to send me a copy of Haunted Halloween Holiday to share with my grandchildren. It is happily sitting on the coffee table waiting for another visit so we can share it again.

I have read a couple of the Sir Chocolate books myself and to my grandchildren and they were very much enjoyed. Haunted Halloween Holiday, takes us into the land of Sir Chocolate, but this book is about Count Sugular, his wife, Witch Honey and their child, Baby Howler. The family has been invited to his cousin’s Halloween Party at the haunted house. Once there they meet many characters, both relatives and friends. It is a delightful Halloween story, where they all work together (food, entertainment etc.) to have a wonderful time at the party.

My youngest grandson is only 3. He loved the illustrations. Robbie does fondant art and photographs it for her books. The characters are so cute and my grandson pretended he was eating them. He didn’t connect with the full story, but loved the limericks that introduced the characters. He wanted me to “read” it again, so we talked about the images and I paraphrased the story for him. The older two (6 & 8) were right into the story. They loved the various names of the characters and all the fun activities they participated in. Flying, playing in mud puddles, eating worms (ewww), moon bathing and more all seemed like so much fun. My oldest thought it was strange that a vampire was married to a witch, so we used this as an opportunity to talk about differences in people and how they could all be friends, so why couldn’t they be married. This made sense to him. My granddaughter loved the flying coffins and caravan. She also pretended to eat the various characters. When we got to the section about anxiety, my grandson immediately commented. He is young, but he also deals with anxiety and related to Toot right away. Once again, it gave us something to discuss and talk about. My grandkids were quite excited to think about Halloween, their costumes and what they might do at a Halloween party. I like that there are so many talking points in this story and that children of varying ages can enjoy this book and take different things from the story. Bravo, Robbie and Michael. We look forward to reading more of your backlist books to find out about other characters and the edible world you have created.

Purchase links:

TSL Publications: https://tslbooks.uk/product/haunted-halloween-holiday-robbie-and-michael-cheadle/

Lulu.com: https://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-cheadle-and-robbie-cheadle/haunted-halloween-holiday/ebook/product-vd5778.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Giveaway

For a chance to win one of three US $10 Amazon vouchers or one of three paperback copies of Haunted Halloween Holiday just leave a comment to show you were here.

Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win.

The prizes will be given away in a random drawing.

Visit these other blogs for additional questions and guest posts from Robbie Cheadle. Each stop will give you another entry for the giveaway!

Monday, October 3 – Double Stop Day! – Guest Post & Review – Writing to be Read,

Guest Post & Review – Undawnted

Tuesday, October 4 – Guest Post & Review – The Showers of Blessings

Wednesday, October 5 – Review & Guest Post – Patty’s World

Thursday, October 6 – Review & Guest Post – Carla Loves to Read

Friday, October 7 – Review & Guest Post – Zigler’s News

Saturday, October 8 – Review & Guest Post – Annette Rochel Aben

Q & A with Robbie Cheadle, Guest Post

I know you and your son write these books together. What inspired you to write this book?

I used to read to Michael every day between the ages of 3 and 9 years old. His favourite books were Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood series and the Mr. Men and Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves.

Michael has a learning barrier and learning to read and write was more difficult for him as a result. He had a vivid imagination and used to tell me little stories about Sir Chocolate, a little man made from chocolate who lived in a world where you could eat everything. I thought that having him write and illustrate his little stories would encourage him with a task he found onerous.

We started sitting together in the afternoons during his first year of school (he was six years old) to work on our books. I converted his ideas into rhyming verse stories, and I helped him write them down. The rhyming helped him remember the words.

It was so much fun that we continued to write the stories for the next three years. We have published eight books in the Sir Chocolate series, and I have another seven that we have not yet published.

The original book was illustrated with hand-drawings by Michael. He soon started showing an interest in creating fondant art with me. We started making figures and cakes to illustrate the stories and I took pictures of them and inserted them into the books. These are the ones that were published.

Michael turned sixteen this year and he still likes to write. His ideas are more advanced and innovative now that he is older, and he also has a strong social conscience.

Haunted Halloween Holiday came about through discussions with Michael about the current state of the world and the new ‘woke’ generation and the acceptance of difference.  We meshed this concept into our tale about a family of mystical creatures who are invited to a Halloween Party.

Michael suffers from depression and this theme is also woven into this story in what we hope is a subtle way. Just enough to encourage some sort of mental note of the concept and the difficulties faced by sufferers.

We did develop the storyline around my idea of incorporating some of my Halloween cake and fondant designs into a book.

The outcome was Haunted Halloween Holiday which I am hoping will enchant young children.

Meet Toot, the sad clown

When Toot’s sad he smiles upside down

Some people call his expression a frown

Playing his horn makes him grin

He’s also expert on the violin

Toot’s the best instrumentalist in town

By Robbie Cheadle

What do you enjoy more? Writing the books or creating the masterpieces you use for the illustrations?

I enjoy both the writing and creating the illustrations. The artwork led the creation of Haunted Halloween Holiday as I have been making cakes and other fondant decorations for Halloween for a few years. I had it in my head that they would make great illustrations for a children’s Halloween story.

In early March this year, my whole family had Covid. None of us were sick enough to require hospitalization but my older son and I were quite ill and took over a month to get back on our feet, health wise. I didn’t feel up to working on my novel during that time and so Michael and I sat together, just like when he was little, and created this new storyline. It was a lot of fun and I like this book very much.

Thanks so much for answering my questions, Robbie.

About Robbie Cheadle: Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with eleven children’s books and two poetry books.

The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9. Count Sugular and his family hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.

Robbie has published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.

Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.

Robbie Cheadle contributes two monthly posts to https://writingtoberead.com, namely, Growing Bookworms, a series providing advice to caregivers on how to encourage children to read and write, and Treasuring Poetry, a series aimed at introducing poetry lovers to new poets and poetry books.

In addition, Roberta Eaton Cheadle contributes one monthly post to https://writingtoberead.com called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends which shares information about the cultures, myths and legends of the indigenous people of southern Africa.

Robbie has a blog, https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com where she shares book reviews, recipes, author interviews, and poetry.

Find Robbie Cheadle

Robbie Cheadle Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Robbie-Cheadle/e/B01N9J62GQ

Robbie Cheadle Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

TSL Publications Robbie Cheadle Author Page: https://tslbooks.uk/product-tag/robbie-cheadle/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bakeandwrite

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SirChocolateBooks

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA

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