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Ghosts, witches, and demons! Festivals that incorporate supernatural figures have been celebrated for centuries. Many honor ancestors or are celebrated to keep the dead from haunting the living. Others commemorate battles between good and evil. Ralphs and Kotyk describe 21 celebrations in double-page spreads filled with intensely colored, at times overly busy, detailed digital illustrations. Compared with similar titles, this one highlights festivals from a variety of regions, among them Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Levant. Starting with Halloween, the holidays include the Ouidah Vodun Festival in Benin, observed in West Africa as well as in the Caribbean and North America; Khamis Al-Amwat, celebrated by Arab Christians and Muslims to honor their dead; and Pchum Ben, a Cambodian Buddhist festival where families pay tribute to the past seven generations of ancestors by preparing food offerings. Unfortunately, the first spread states that Halloween “gets its name from the pagan festival All Hallows’ Eve,” while the section on Samhain refers to All Hallows’ Eve as a Christian celebration. It’s difficult to figure out the order in which to read the text blocks, because the reader’s eyes are constantly being pulled in different directions. There’s no chronological, geographic, or thematic order, and the book lacks a table of contents, index, or map, but despite these flaws, it explores a fair number of holidays that aren’t always spotlighted in children’s literature. A high-interest title, with some organizational weaknesses.(Informational picture book. 7-11) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.