“The Halloween Tree”
Chapters 13-19 Worksheet ANSWERS
Chapter 13
1. How did the Druid priests get Sanheim to release the souls?
They chanted and sacrificed animals.
2. What did the Roman soldiers do to Sanheim and the Druids?
They slammed swords and axes into the bases of the holy druid
oaks. They chopped at ankles. “Blown over like oaks in a hurricane”
3. What event are the boys heading to by the end of the
chapter?
The gathering of the Brooms- “The October Broom Festival. The
Annual Migration.”
Chapter 14
1. What six things do you learn that witches cannot do?
1. Talk to the dead
2. Jump up devils
3. Keep demons in door hinges & squeal them out at midnight
4. Ride broomsticks
5. Put sneezing spells on people
6. Kill folks by sticking pins in dolls
2. What does the word “witch” truly mean?
Wits, intelligence, and knowledge
3. Why does Henry Hank agree it wouldn’t be any fun to be a
witch?
They can’t really do anything that he thought witches could do.
Chapters 15 and 16
1. Why did the boys have to build Notre Dame?
To scare the scarers, frighten the frighteners, shiver the
shiverers. Cast shadows across entire land & sea for hundred
miles.
2. When they finish building it what is it missing?
It is missing gargoyles.
3. Where is Pipkin?
Pipkin is in the bell.
4. What does Tom say made up all the gargoyles?
Various beasts and spidering leers and gloms and masks, why here
came dragons chasing children and whales swallowing Jonahs and
chariots chockfull of skulls-and-bones. Acrobats and tumblers,
yanked out of shape by demidemons, limped and fell in strange
postures to freeze on the roof.
Chapter 17
1. In what country are the boys now?
They are in Paris, France.
2. What physical form does Pipkin take in this chapter?
Pipkin takes the form of a gargoyle.
3. What is Pipkin’s explanation to the boys’ question, “Are you
dead?”
“No, not yet. Part of me in a hospital a long way off home, part of
me in that old Egyptian tomb. Part of me in the grass in England.
Part of me here. Part of me in a worse place-“
Chapter 18
1. What do the cemeteries in Mexico look like compared to the
ones that the boys are used to?
They are full of candlelight and people.
2. What does El Dia de los Muertos mean?
The Day of the Dead Ones
3. Describe what was by every grave.
 a woman kneeling to place flowers
 a daughter lighting or re-lighting a candle
 quiet boy with brown eyes, holding a small papier-mache
funeral parade glued to a shingle, and in the other hand a
papier-mache skeleton head rattler
 cookies shaped like funeral priests, skeletons, or ghosts
4. Why does Tom think the graveyards are so much more fun in
Mexico?
Because no one goes to graveyards in the U.S., and in Mexico
graveyards are packed with people & fun things
5. Describe the miniature funeral that each boy put down on the
grave.
It had a tiny candy person inside a tiny wooden coffin placed
before a tiny alter with tiny candles. And around the tiny coffin
stood tiny altar boys with peanuts for heads and eyes painted on
the peanut shells. And before the altar stood a priest with a
cornnut for a head and a walnut for a stomach. And on the altar
was a photograph of the person in the coffin.
6. What does Cuevos de los Muertos mean?
The skulls of the dead
7. What are the white skulls for?
They were candy- with names written on them
8. Why do the boys agree that Halloween is more fun in Mexico
than back in Illinois?
It’s both happy and sad. It’s all firecrackers and skeleton toys
here in the plaza, and in the graveyard now are all the Mexican
dead folks with the families visiting and flowers and candles and
singing and candy.
Chapter 19
1. Explain in detail what happens when Tom and the others go
down into the catacombs to find Pipkin.
Tom sank into the earth. It got darker and quieter. Bats are
above their heads. Each step down felt like a billion miles lost
from life.
2. Explain how Moundshroud’s house became a summary for the
entire ten thousand year flight.
The levels of the great house showed every age and story.
3. By the end of the chapter what is the answer to, “What is
Halloween?”
Night & day, summer & winter, seedtime & harvest, life & death,
noon & midnight, being born…all rolled up in one.
4. Who is Moundshroud?
The Taker of Death
5. What exactly is “The Halloween Tree?”
The gateway to learning about Halloween. It’s the symbol of
Moundshroud’s passageway into their journey.
6. Explain how real friendships are shown in this story.
(Opinion)