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WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Death is when the witch gets you and puts you in the oven or cooks you in a pie.

Kids relate to that sort of thing.

A little bedtime story from the man himself, Stephen King.

It's Friday, October 24th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBOR.

I'm Chris Bentley.

Halloween is next week, and today on the show, we're talking to the master of horror, Stephen King, about a kid's book?

Yes, indeed, and not just any book for kids, but King's take on the classic fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, a collaboration with the late artist Maurice

Sindack.

Yeah, it's kind of funny to think of Stephen King and children's books together.

But you know what?

A lot of his novels deal with the perspectives of kids or young people.

King thinks there's something about terror and childhood

that just go together. So yeah, trick-or-treating has the candy and the camaraderie, the

coziness of sunsets creeping earlier. But remember the reason for the season, kids get the horror

of Halloween better than anyone.

So in that spirit, I'll hand it over now to Robin Young.

I actually remember reading Hansel and Gretel as a child, and I thought two things.

First, don't leave breadcrumbs to find your way home.

Birds will eat them.

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