Today, we have a lovely — and seasonally appropriate! — piece by author Roshani Chokshi, whose new middle grade book The Spirit Glass is out now. And she’s sharing a little bit about her kid’s nursery… and the ominous presence on the wall of Rudy the reindeer: “Rudy looks like a stag, but a stag whose flesh has been flensed and whose skull was then dipped in molten silver. His antlers are nubbed and nightmarish, and even hanging the little newborn hats from their points does nothing to soften them.” She adds: “‘What if it scares her?’ my husband asked. ‘What if she’s afraid when she goes to bed?’ ‘Nonsense!’ I countered. ‘Who wouldn’t be soothed to sleep beneath the baleful gaze of a demon reindeer?’” But Rudy is all part of a bigger point about how she wants her kid to approach scary stuff. And I bet it’ll change the way you think about the trick-or-treating houses with the genuinely ghoulish decor. Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor | 
