MADELEINE MONDAY

The kid is back in these pages. On Saturday her school put on a Halloween event called Trunk Or Treat. Parents and staff set up a line of cars in the parking lot, rear side outward, with decorated trunks and loads of kid loot. Ellie and her friends attacked the line twice, stashing enough sugar in their bags to cause a diabetic coma. She wore her Hermione outfit from the Harry Potter series and clutched a stuffed Hedwig the owl, obtained by her doting grandparents at the real Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross station, London.

These events didn't exist when my kids were young. They are everywhere now.          

MADELEINE MONDAY

In this country Halloween can be wild fun for children and not a few adults. I'm not into it myself. It is vastly more commercialized than when I was a child. I don't like being frightened (some people think it's fun - I don't) or the implications of violence and death. For most American children, though, it is a sugar-fueled fantasy celebration.

Ellie is getting into Harry Potter. The books are a challenge for her reading level but she has made her way through most of the first one. She loves the movies. So yesterday she got herself up as Hermione (with some help from mom), mounted her broom and was about to take off from our front steps when I caught her.