Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury is best known for his sci-fi, but when I stumbled across his ominously titled "Something Wicked This Way Comes", I had to give it a try. Macabre and brimming with baroque language, Bradbury's novel seems to be too dark and difficult for its target demographic of children. I myself didn't really understand what I was getting into which negatively shaded my assessment of the first half of the book. But by the second half, Bradbury was beginning to win me over with his brief scenes of touchingly retro father-son moments woven throughout the ghastly magical realism of the rest of the novel. My favorite parts of the book were when Bradbury captured some of the magic of being a young boy and reflected on the relationship between father and son. It's a book that I can imagine reading to future mini-Max's around Halloween, but only if they promise not to sneak out after dark!