Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed

For Willie Bea, Halloween was the best time of the year. Relatives came to visit. There was cooking, baking, dressing up and the special fun of an authorized “begging for treats.”

But this Halloween was destined to be different. It was 1938 and the day of the Orson Welles broadcast that would terrify people across the country. The Wing and the Mills families were no exception during this bizarre, drama-filled time.

Willie Bea and her extended family are among the most intriguing characters Virginia Hamilton has created. Ms. Hamilton’s account of one day in their lives, and a portentous night of reckoning, is a gripping, original and comic tale.