#long live the pumpkin queen

[scientistservant]

I'm sorry for sending in another ask 🙈 But I need to know your opinion, as I haven't had a chance to read it. Sooooooo, why is Long Live The Pumpkin Queen, bad? Did they fuck up the doc and Sally that badly? Like are we talking about Love Never Dies level of shitty? (musical sequel to Phantom of the opera that most of us fans loathe.)

Oh boy, okay

This is gonna be long, please bare with me 😭

So the book completely changes/“fixes” Sally’s origins. She wasn’t a creation, or never even FROM Halloween Town.

She’s a special princess of dolls from “Dream Town” and has parents who are also dolls. She was kidnapped from her bedroom when she was like 12 by Finkelstein.

This is fucking bullshit.

How she even physically ages or how dolls can even conceive is never brought up or explained. Nor is how Fink even kidnapped her in the first place. The book and author just expects you to accept this new canon, which conveniently comes out like three decades after the source material.

Because the book is in first person and in Sally’s point of view we NEVER hear any perspective or proper explanation from Fink or any other character about anything.

Fink is just reduced to a one-dimensional villain who kidnapped Sally all because he apparently can’t create life or bring things back to life via science. You know… HIS FUCKING JOB.

He despises that Jack and Sally get married, despite that Fink would be ecstatic at this (Sally’s his creation and Jack one of his very old friends.)

Sally is also reduced to a one-dimensional protagonist who never questions anything and every third word from her mouth/brain is either “sad”, “ragdoll”, or “stitches/seams”.

She just believes these two doll people who she’s never met before, and doesn’t bother to leave “Dream Town” to ask the elderly scientist she’s known for her entire existence about this (not to mention everyone in the entire world including the holiday realms are dead asleep at this point at this part in the book anyway…)

Oh yeah, the book has a main villain too, surprisingly. It’s not Fink, even though the book certainly treats him like it.

It’s the fake ruler of “Dream Town”, Sandman, who’s actually kind of cool and creepy. But his reasoning for his villainy is bullshit, just like everything else in this damn book.

He’s just tired.

Yeah.

The Sandman is tired because he can’t sleep and his sand doesn’t work on him so he can’t get to sleep. You’d think a being as powerful and seemingly dangerous as this guy wouldn’t need sleep, but apparently he does. He’s cranky and needs a nap with his blanky, boo-fucking-hoo.

The ONLY thing I actually sort of enjoyed in the book was the bit where Sandman was stalking Halloween Town, putting everyone to sleep, and Sally was hiding from him. That was actually kind of suspenseful and I wish Sandman was that threatening throughout.

And does Sandman get any punishment for taking over “Dream Town” and putting everyone in an eternal sleep?

Nope. But FINK gets punished! Firstly, Jack completely believes these two random doll creatures he has never met before and that say they’re Sally’s parents. He yells at Fink, without asking his dear old friend if any of this is even true. And then Fink gets 100 years of prison and community service, which is stupid because why the fuck would Holiday realm laws, much less HALLOWEEN TOWN laws, function the same as the real world’s?

Speaking of which, apparently Halloween Town’s an actual monarchy, and the Pumpkin King isn’t just a cool title for the face/mascot/figurehead of the realm. The book even lampshades this, but doesn’t take this anywhere further aside from Sally complaining she has to wear a crown and Jack doesn’t.

This whole book is stupid and I will never accept it as canon, ever.

What sucks about this is that I fucking PREORDERED the book! I thought it was gonna be a story about how and why Sally was created, and get some backstory/lore for Fink, as well as explanation of why his relationship with his creation got so bad. Maybe a little extra plot of how Sally and Jack met.

But it didn’t. I fucking cried. This book made me cry my fucking eyes out, out of anger and betrayal because my favourite character and his creation/daughter was butchered.

After reading the whole thing I threw the book in a little library and never looked back.

I’m still working on a complete and total rewrite/fix-it-fic, it’s just gotten put on the back-burner because of other projects I’m currently working/fixated on. Apologies for that. But I promise it won’t be forgotten!

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the Holiday rulers have a meeting about climate change. Because Holidays have super importance with the weather or some shit. I’m not fucking kidding.

EDIT 2: The author is also a New York Times best-seller which is already pretty suspicious since that is basically a huge scam. The book has hundreds of 4-5 star reviews that don't even really get into the specifics of WHY it's good. They're all either extreme Jack x Sally fans (the book starts off with them getting married and Sally's main dilemma is worrying about being "a good enough queen") that like anything tnbc/Jally related OR a bunch of people were paid to give this book glowing reviews.

#the nightmare before christmas #tnbc #long live the pumpkin queen #sally finkelstein #sally skellington #dr. finkelstein

[tnbc-thoughtsandheadcanons]

Happy International Women's Day to Sally Skellington, who has had not three, but FOUR books about her!

#international women's day #the nightmare before christmas #nightmare before christmas #sally stitches #sally skellington #sally ragdoll #tnbc #tim burton #henry selick #disney #mirror moon #long live the pumpkin queen #sally's lament #little golden book #disney twisted tales #bookblr #sally finkelstein

[themagickingdomofdisney]

#disney #disney movies #long live the pumpkin queen #sally skellington #sally #the nightmare before christmas

[gabowook]

The Skellingtons!

I’m finally reading Long Live The Pumpkin Queen

#jack skellington #sally skellington #the nightmare before christmas #tnbc #long live the pumpkin queen #fanart

[feritirey]

I just finished reading - Long Live the Pumpkin Queen - and I loved it so much. The Nightmare Before Christmas has always been my favourite movie, and new content is always a pleasure to see :D

#the nightmare before christmas #sally skellington #sally #tnbc #fanart #tim burton #illustration #my art #feritirey #el extraño mundo de jack #long live the pumpkin queen

[wannabe-british-fangirl]

~ books read in 2023 ~

#30: Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw

At the crisp, inky hour of midnight, Jack and I are married atop Spiral Hill in the Death's Door Cemetery.

Rating: 3.5/5

#long live the pumpkin queen #shea ernshaw #the nightmare before christmas #2023 reading list #books #book aesthetic #book moodboard #middle grade books #sally skellington #jack skellington #nightmare before christmas #what happens after #self confidence #finding self confidence #dreams #sleep #the sandman

[insanelyadd]

Reading the Nightmare Before Christmas sequel book Long Live The Pumpkin Queen and I made two memes. So out of context spoilers below

I am actually losing my mind (positive) about these things btw

#tnbc #nightmare before christmas #long live the pumpkin queen #jack skellington #sally skellington #jack and sally #spoilers?

[excentricanthropologist]

I need everyone to know that in "Long Live the Pumpkin Queen", the Nightmare Before Christmas YA novel that came out last year, Sally travels to the human world and spends seven pages rhapsodizing over a sleeping Queen Elizabeth II.

Also, this book was published on August 2, 2022, and the Queen died on September 8, 2022. 💀 Make of that what you will.

#my TA came into the library today and told me about this and I couldn't believe my ears #the nightmare before christmas #long live the pumpkin queen #disney

[selenadrawsstuff]

“Long Live the Pumpkin Queen!”

I redrew the cover of Sally’s book in color and I can’t believe how this turned out! This is one of the best Sally artworks I have ever made! (The book is filled with mixed emotions, you should read it if you haven’t already!) There are two different versions of the cover, the one with bits of color here and there and the exclusive black and white one which is the one I have here at home right now.

#the nightmare before christmas #nightmare before christmas #tnbc #tnbc sally #Sally #sally skellington #rag doll sally #long live the pumpkin queen #the pumpkin queen #pumpkin queen #Halloween #Tim Burton #Tim Burton fanart #Tim Burton art #redraw #art #artist #artwork #digital art #digital artist #digital artwork #digital drawing #drawing #small artist #commissions open #art prints #art print #fanart #Jack and sally #sally and jack

[violetrose-art]

Last Line

Thanks for the tag, @oceangirl24

(fast and loose) rules: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

She wrapped her arms around Jack's neck in a hug before he delicately placed the ring onto her finger.

Tagging: @valerieblogsalot, @princesspuresarahk, @djinarocks, @the-indie-owl, @ibrithir-was-here, @emilylsart, and anyone who wants to play

#Long Live the Pumpkin Queen #The Nightmare Before Christmas #It's a rewrite I'm planning to do #Tag #Tag Game #Writing #Writing Tag Game #Fanfiction

[thetownwecallhome]

TNBC Shower Thought-cloud #5: Sally the Ragdoll

((OOC:

So the sequel book to Nightmare Before Christmas All Hail the Pumpkin Queen, came out this last year and I just gotta make my stance clear now: if you like that book, cool.

I don't. Like, I really don't. To make a long story short, Shea Anshaw's take on Jack and Sally finally getting married ft the revelations that

Sally wasn't actually made by Dr. Finkelstein

Sally is a princess from another world

Sally wax poetic abt awesome girl-boss royalty ((like, human royalty, the kind that commits genocide and apartheid)) being legit and cool and how you shouldn't question it

This newest girl-bossification of Sally is positing the same question the TNBC-critical sphere has been asking for years: is Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas dependent and therefore can't be a good feminist character?

The hyperbole take on her being " her [Sally's] entire purpose is being supportive of Jack, who isn't supportive of her and who doesn't deserve her as a girlfriend "

This isn't a fringe opinion nor is it held only by people I dislike. Lindsay Ellis jokingly told Sally to "get her bachelor's degree" in one of her vids which I am very obviously not butthurt at all by as you can tell, while Hasani Walker made a webcomic where that functionally happens; Sally and Jack break up to work things out individually before they really try it out as a couple.

Just so we're clear, my disagreeing with these two and other creators is NOT meant to be war on people who don't ship SallyxJack, nor is it a roast on people who are critical of Sally/TNBC as a principle.

BUT, when it comes to Sally ((in the film, not the games or spin offs, the film)) being a doormat of a woman who's too good for her man...I disagree.

---First thing's first, My take on Sally is highly influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas : The Film, the Art, and the Vision which my sister bought years ago. In that book, Carolyn Thompson said this -

While TNBC is the story of the time Jack did a thing and ruined it for everyone, it's Sally who embodies everything the filmmakers want the audience to feel about Jack.

Set up and seen before Jack is even on screen, Sally is a part of the world of Halloween, but also an outsider in it. This gives her the position to see Jack the way the audience does; Just like Sally, we are awed and enamored with Jack when he first pops up, then saddened and sympathetic for him once we realize his plight. Though she's absent from Jack's finding of Christmas Town, she IS there for the town meeting when we the audience (and her) are gushing over his gushing over Christmas. We sense along with Sally Jack's frustration with the town citizens, are saddened to see him pander to them, and can tell he’s not well when committing to his Xmas experiments. Most important of all, Sally recognizes Jack’s Xmas takeover as wrong and wants to stop it, even if she love him. Even without hearing him sing “I bet I could IMPROVE IT TOO” like we do, Sally knows Jack is wrong. Regardless of her care for Jack, visibly, she’s the only one who sees what’s happening with Santa is wrong. Sally tracks him down in order to help Jack, but she’s none the less Santa’s real ally. From everything we know about her, Sally, like the rest of Halloween Town, is not a mean monster and doesn’t like to spread misery ala Oogie Boogie, and she’s not too hopped up on enthusiasm to forget when she’s hurting people like Jack and the town very much are. Sally is the og critical stan. now join me for a tanget-

Interestingly, any other holiday film ((Year without a Santa Claus, Hocus Pocus, Hop)) would make the voice-of-reason audience-surrogate character a peppy human child who's interacting w the holiday characters, but in TNBC, the writers made the surrogate someone who's also a holiday character- Sally. Sally is kind of to TNBC what Nick Calloway is to The Great Gatsby. Yeah, that's a stretch-Nick is of course the narrator and author-stand in for his story where Sally isn't (although, a TNBC narrated by Sally sounds dope as hell, ngl), tho more importantly, while Nick learns along with the reader how cruel and fruitless the American dream Jay believed in actually was,

---Sally is a character who doesn’t have to learn anything. tanget- again

A lot of people have this opinion on Disney heroines like Belle or Ariel, that good characters, female or otherwise, don't necessarily have to learn anything. I could take or leave Belle and Ariel in as far as if they should learn a lesson in their movies. But in my eyes, that character will always be Sally. Sally is a character you wanna aspire to be like and who doesn’t need to learn the lesson of the story. And yes, Sally is also in-love with Jack. You can be extra cynicalsassy and use this to say "TNBC was made to make you feel like you could make out w Jack Skellington" (( I'd like to point out that Nick is all but canonically in love with Jay in GG)) but that's not the point. More importantly...how/why is that a bad thing that Sally is in love? TNBC doesn’t pass any bectal tests. If women always supporting other women is the only mark of feminism ever then I guess, but I mean, what’s wrong if a woman’s inspo and motivation is a man? What’s especially wrong if she’s self aware and tries to battle that man’s influence within the story. How is that "putting up with" or "enabling/excusing/thinking only of Jack". Sally...really doesn't do that...

---Sally has wants, but within the narrative of Nightmare she's just a bit taken back by needs. At the start of the movie what Sally wants, and the reason she says "I know how you feel" to Jack, is to be active.

“I don’t want to BE patient”

“I’m restless, I can’t help it!”

Sally wants to be anything but Finkelstein's cute assistant because SHE knows she's more than that. She wants to be a part of Halloween Town. What's keeping her back is her reluctance to be free, which she finally throws to the wind after seeing Jack's tower from afar, which is why she's so happy throwing herself out the window - that's her 'let it go' moment of actually taking action in her life. The man she loves is evidently doing it -why shouldn't she? Her actual 'need' is to escape from Dr. Finkelste and it’s really not an obstacle, if we're being honest. The balls are all in her court; Fink's at most an irritation to her. She literally came back to his lab just to be sewn up and smile in his face about poisoning him. She can, and does, so often easily escape because she’s NOT perturbed by him. Sally is, at this point in the film, totally in control of her wants and her needs. But then- the plot kicks in and she has her vision. It's then that her real need in the story, the need she recognizes, outweighs her wants, that need being: "omg I gotta stop this undead himbo from hurting himself and other people!" Sally’s #1 goal in the film is NOT to be Jack's gf, it’s just to save him from himself. Jack inspires her, makes her feel good, but she doesn’t let that stop her from seeing things for how they are ABOUT him. Her words in "Sally Song" never read to me as "notice me senpai I wish I was good ENOUGH" self-loathing. If anything her succumbing to “it’s never to become '' about Jack isn’t some “I love you even though you’ll NEVER luff MEEEEE” devotion, but forlorn frustration. “I think it’s not to be '' = Jack’s never gonna change”. It's Sally's lament about how she doesn't believe Jack will ever want her that way because she just knows what kind of person he is*. But that's not the only thing she sings about in this song. Sally has been apart from the crowd and wants to be a part of it, but any joy she’d have in her new independence is kinda sucked up by knowing Jack is gonna get him and possibly the rest of the town killed. She even wonders in her song if she wants to or ever can be really a part of Halloween Town when she clearly can’t do the hype-Jack-up song and dance like the rest of them. Jack evidently treats her like an equal part of the team, but 1) for Jack that's just another citizen he thinks doesn't understand him, and 2) it's participation in a project she knows she doesn't want to be a part of. Real monkey's paw there, Sally!

If there is anything close enough to a lesson for Sally in the film, arguably, it’d be not to underestimate Jack as unable to change. She’s not only validated by the end of the film, she gets to see Jack really bounce back and be the person she loved at the start- and then is taken aback that he not only does this but finally recognizes her affections, her efforts, and her as a person. final tangent:

((I think the make-or-break-you point with Nightmare is a question of whether or not you think Jack learned his lesson. While I think the filmmakers could have really handled that better, especially in “Poor Jack”, I think what they were going for in their own crunch of an ending is Jack falling in love with Sally is his redemption- he finally came around to seeing her and her way. The Film, the Art, and the Vision makes a point of how Sally is far more than Jack’s romantic interest. ))

Being Mr. Cynical again, you could handwave this as just a throw-in from the writers; "actually she IS REALLY important lookit all the things she do!" but I believe in that statement because they believe in that.

--Sally's MO is centered around Jack. Narratively, yes, she exists in compandum to him. But, within the actual story of the film, Jack isn't her soul purpose in life. The fact that she tries to stop him is proof enough of that. 

The argument that Sally is too good and better than the relationship she's in falls apart because Jack and Sally aren't IN a relationship in the film. They hook up at the end -that's not the same as them being together or a couple. The logic of this take is, again, confusing Sally's wants with her needs, and also presuming Jack always loved her and just didn't realize until the end of the story, which is NOT the text of the actual film, that's fan speculation. (( I prefer Jack falling in love with Sally on the spot out of nowhere. It's such a Jack way of doing things...)) I think what convinces people that Sally is “dependent” on Jack or only ever his side-kick is how expanded media treats her as character, as well as her relationship w Jack. In the 2000s, all that mattered for making spin off material of kid’s franchises is keeping the cast recognizable and that means undoing their development if the point of the story is that they change. It happened in every Land Before Time sequel where Cera and Littlefoot have to be the respective team-racist and team-leader, always, ever, all the time; it happened in the Finding Nemo comics set after the movie where writers still made Marlin overprotective of Nemo; it happened to Jack in Kingdom Hearts and Oogie’s Revenge. The writers may want to write an actual story, but it’s easier to just write what the characters are like in the original. SO, Jack HAS to be an oblivious, selfish manchild and can never learn and is also really despondent and prone to abandoning ppl he supposedly cares about. This sucks enough for Jack's character, but I think Sally suffered even worse than him. At that time, media and merch did treat Sally like she was JUST Jack’s love interest. Literally in Oogie’s Revenge's game pamphlet the only disc for her is “she’s sewn her way into Jack’s heart”, like she’s just his side piece and not the woman he ended his movie with who was also a really important character you followed within that movie. We can only repeat what we know from the film so oop!-Jewel’s MIA and Sally has to live with her sexist ex/boss who doesn't even like her.

---While we're here, I'm 100% sure Sally and Dr. Fink’s relationship is not familial. Some fictional mad scientists do love their creations like they were their children (see also: Mad Monster Party, 9, Frankenweenie for animated examples). Not Dr. Fink. While not exactly predatory ((because it's a fricken kids film, ew)) Dr Finkelstein is a sexist old man. He's problematic. Fink made Sally to be his sexy secretary. He's mad because her life doesn’t revolve around him the way he thinks a woman who works for him life should. In the end, he just decided to go and make a copy of himself since he knows now what he wants is to be told how awesome he is. I really don’t vibe some fic authors (and Shea Anshaw's) insistence that they be anything like ‘family’, hence why I made fun of it on this blog.

For all I disagree with between our headcanons, I much prefer Hasani Walker's take on Sally to Long Live the Pumpkin Queen. Hasani went in w good vibes; he made decent takes and criticisms; he made some good art; he did a sweet crossover between stop-motion properties, and MOST importantly, Hasani gave Sally a hat and a cool girl vest. Did Shea Anshaw do that? No!

It feels very at home and on-brand for TNBC that Sally was made from whole cloth as a ragdoll, but is still her own autonomous person by the rest of town and even the leader eventually. Reminds me a lot of the Oz books where the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, and Gump are all just possessions but who are seen as people by the heroes, and even made official citizens by the heroes, which they are. What's more Halloweeny than a living-ragdoll-frankenstein woman being co-ruler of everything spoopy, or even just a citizen loved and respected as much as the rest of the town for her own attributes? If that's what you want, and it's what Hasani actually did for her, than give her that. Outside of her purpose within the story that I already mentioned earlier... what about Sally is sexist? So TNBC doesn't pass the bechdel test and Sally's main inspo happens to be her man. Not her soul purpose like in mother!, just her muse, her kin, her dearest friend. Secret of NIMH and Kubo and the Two Strings have female characters whose motives are their men and those characters don't even have first names. I kinda really hate the implication that a woman can't have a male character as a motive ever or else. As a feminist, I agree, women characters should be individuals and not props for the men. The problem to me isn't so much the insistence that a woman be there for support, it's writers crafting a story where certain characters fill more of a role or purpose in cunjunction to another, and when the writer happens to make said character a woman.

Also, since the whole point of LLTPQ was to give Sally her own agency and importance...how is it fair that she HAVE to be a royalty HERSELF in order to be her own person?

Is it because she was made to be a sexy nurse and that's somehow wrong or shameful even though the whole point is it's not her fault? Is it that people would accuse her of “leeching off" Jack just for being in a relationship with him? You know? The thing bad, sexist people do to women and sax workers irl if they have famous boos when they themselves aren't famous? If the only people complaining are those who think Sally is JUST Jack’s sidepiece, why validate those people? Wanting her to have agency within the movie and so giving her different choices as opposed to just INSTANTLY marrying Jack? That's a take I can vibe with because that is true to the nature of what Sally is, which is not just the Mad Scientist's beautiful assistant. By making Sally a "princess all along '', you imply that her even possibly starting from the bottom makes her beneath Jack and she has to rise to be his equal. Sally never had to do this in the original movie. Sally really was the smartest, most in tune person in town.

I talk a big game, of course, but even as my fav character I know I've done Sally wrong too. The "Mothball" comic is one of my biggest regrets from this blog. It's SO badly worded and I think it's a comic that REALLY needed a second opinion. Sally did nothing wrong in that comic, but both it and Jack made her feel like they were both in the wrong. Trying to give Jack and Sally a conflict as a couple was hard and I ended up rehashing some really harmful language, which I didn't want to do for either Sally or Jack. Don't like that comic. My first choice of retype, redraft.

final thoughts?

What people (me, Lindsay, Hasani, Shea, errybody) actually want of Sally is to have her own agency and 'character' apart from Jack. While narratively, yes, Sally functions as being there to endear Jack to the audience, my point is as a character within the narrative-Sally does have her own autonomy apart from him. She is massively independent of him. I know because that's who she is throughout the entire movie. I think it's because we all see she clearly does have her own interests/agency/character beyond that that we're all anxious to get more of that personally from her...which Disney won't do because they're Disney and certain characters can't come as their own especially when they fufilled another character's purpose in the og film.

Anna can't really do anything that isn't tied to Elsa because it's Elsa who's the reason any of Frozen happens at all.

Belle is always only the cheerleader of the Beast because his character arc is what drives the story.

Sally has to always be in toe of Jack because TNBC is Jack's story and she loves Jack.

But, we love Sally.

Give Sally her own limelight. Give her a limelight that isn't compltely making her a different character or demanding she be the same character as Jack.

Let Sally say #$%&

))

#sally the ragdoll #sally the nightmare before christmas #nightmare before christmas #the nightmare before christmas #tnbc analysis #sally skellington #long live the pumpkin queen

[tnbc-thoughtsandheadcanons]

The fact that Jack Skellington visited the other Holiday Worlds post-movie, to meet their leaders and get to know their towns....EXCEPT Valentine's Town because he wanted to save that specifically for Sally...because he KNEW the holiday was about love and romance...and chose going THERE for their honeymoon so he can experience it with *her* for the first time...

#the nightmare before christmas #jack skellington #nightmare before christmas #long live the pumpkin queen #shea ernshaw #lltpq #tnbc #sally skellington #jack x sally #jack and sally #pumpkin queen spoilers

[anonymously-creating]

Do you guys think there’s a sex shop in Valentine’s Day Town?

Ruby Valentino handing Jack a strap-on: “Here. You might need this for Sally.”

Jack, completely dumbfounded: “Why on earth would I need this?”

Ruby: “Well, you’re a skeleton, right? You don’t have a…” *Gestures to the lower half of his body.*

Jack: “I literally eat, drink, sleep, walk, and can do just about everything a normal skeleton can’t do. Why are you doubting my abilities?”

#the nightmare before christmas #nightmare before christmas #tnbc #nbc #valentines day town #valentines day #jack skeleton #jack skellington #jack x sally #sally x jack #sally ragdoll #sally #long live the pumpkin queen #lltpq #llpq #ruby valentino #smut #ish

[darkwingsnark]

So the Queen of England was in the new Nightmare Before Christmas book I read the last week, and she was shown to be asleep as Sally just randomly strokes her arm in adoration. Today we received the news of her passing.

Guys, we never heard if Queen Elizabeth II woke up in the book. Sally gave her the touch of death.

#long live the pumpkin queen #the nightmare before christmas #queen elizabeth II #death mention tw #Alright the only post I'm making about this #Just so weird that it happened within the same week of having read the book

[dragon-cookies]

Can’t believe Sally killed the queen herself

#LLTPQ #long live the pumpkin queen #gotta post while it’s relevant hfdhfsdhd #tnbc #the nightmare before christmas

[themagickingdomofdisney]

LONG LIVE THE PUMPKIN QUEEN

REVIEW

At just over 300 pages, “Long Live the Pumpkin Queen” is a young adult fiction novel by Shea Ernshaw and serves as the official sequel to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. My qualifications for writing this review include a BA in English, my work as a full-time English Language Arts instructor, and a strong understanding of the source material. In order to provide a thorough analysis of the text, commentary on characters, plot points and settings are necessary, so spoilers are unavoidable beyond this point.

The story begins shortly after the events of the film (a few weeks before the Halloween of the following year), and Jack and Sally are married atop the iconic Spiral Hill. Though she is excited about this union with Jack, Sally becomes quickly overwhelmed by the new “Pumpkin Queen” title she carries. Fans of the film will recognize Sally’s partiality to avoid the attention of a crowd, and I appreciate that the author maintained the personality traits these characters.

During this first section of the story, readers are given an immersive look into one of the seven holiday trees in the Hinterlands, as the two rulers of Halloween Town enjoy their honeymoon in Valentine’s Town. This is a defining moment for Sally, because it allows her to express an innate whimsy and wonderment that does not exist in Jack - a point that one cannot fully understand until the final section of the novel. While Jack is fascinated by Valentine’s Town (comparable to an archetypal tourist), Sally feels safe, happy, and loved - even in this strange world - hinting that Sally does not quite feel at home in Halloween Town. This point is further proved as she mentions that home is with Jack, wherever that may be. After learning that Sally is not originally from Halloween Town, I was quite impressed by the subtle yet pithy foreshadowing.

After their return to Halloween Town, Sally is immediately overwhelmed by dress fittings, crown try-ons, and planning the All Hallows Eve party, and this experience causes Sally to find a moment of solace in the Hinterlands (followed by Zero). There, she discovers another section of the grove and a tree with the door to Dream Town covered in brambles and vines. Zero prevents her from entering the door, and I was thankful that this book did not follow the same “Halloween Town resident enters a strange door” from the film. Instead, Sally leaves the door open and unwittingly releases the Sandman into Halloween Town. On her return, Sally finds that everyone in Halloween Town is lost in a sleep from which they cannot wake.

What follows is a repetitive and unnecessary “mini adventure” as Sally explores all of the holiday realms just to confirm that the Sandman had put everyone else to sleep. While I didn’t mind the idea of her entering and exiting these other holiday realms so quickly, I did not appreciate the redundancy of the events, as each and every land - and her descent into them - was described in detail. Having the scenery, scents, and sounds seven different worlds described one after the other (paired with the panicked narration of Sally) was an unsuccessful juxtaposition of pacing; especially when only one of these realms - Dream Town - would be revisited in the story. I also found it out of place for Sally to visit the human world at all, but this did not take away from the enjoyment of the novel.

Repetition proved annoying in another form as well: Ernshaw’s overuse of the leaves in Sally’s body (her stuffing, as the cotton was replaced by Dr. Finkelstein) as an expression of her emotionality. Every few pages, some variation of “the leaves in my chest rustle” would appear. After it’s fifth appearance, I found myself skipping past the lines. However, I understand that this is a young adult novel, and teen readers may benefit from examples of descriptive language being repeated.

A common complaint found in other reviews of Ernshaw’s sequel is her choice to make Sally a former resident of Dream Town. As described in the text, the twelve-year-old Sally was stolen from her two rag doll parents by Dr. Finkelstein, brought to Halloween Town where he gave her a forgetting potion, replaced the cotton in her body with dead leaves, and convinced her that he created her. Technically speaking, this does not alter the lore provided by the source material because more information is provided about her past instead of changing it. Since I am a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I was sure to pay attention to and be critical of any details that might have changed the already-established plot. I am happy to say that this novel does no such thing. In fact, this works to confirm her personality from the film, as Sally never seemed to fit in with the other residents of Halloween Town. For example, while the others were rejoicing in the horrific Christmas they created, Sally felt it was wrong and actively tried to prevent it. Learning that she is a rag doll from Dream Town whose role would be to lull children to sleep helped to further establish her motivations as a character. And though Fans might feel conflicted over the nature of this backstory (and the negative light Finkelstein now finds himself in), I personally loved following Sally through her self-discovery.

My final criticism is in regards to the Sandman himself. I would imagine that when providing a canonical sequel to a well-known piece of media, the task of imagining a new character should not be taken lightly. I do not know the image of the Sandman Ernshaw had in mind while writing, as it does not come through in the writing. From description, the reader is unable to describe the Sandman beyond “an old, tired man who floats.” I struggled imagining the Sandman as a character from Burton’s world, and that is disappointing.

In all, I found this quite an enjoyable read and will certainly read again. Despite the grievances listed above, I believe that Ernshaw was successful in delivering a satisfying sequel to the beloved story. The ending was endearing and heart-felt, leaving readers satisfied and that much more obsessed with the world’s most famous rag doll heroine. For the Disney company to provide the sequel as a novel is something I absolutely adore, and would rate the novel eight out of ten stars.

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Recap:

Despite Shea Ernshaw’s occasional redundancy and momentary pacing issues, her novel “Long Live the Pumpkin Queen” serves as an exciting and successful canonical sequel to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Fans will appreciate that the characters and lore alike maintain their pre-established qualities, and many will enjoy the truths learned about Sally’s past. To provide the sequel in the form of a novel is a creative endeavor in itself, and I enjoyed it thoroughly enough to want to read it again.

8/10 ⭐️

#disney #the nightmare before christmas #long live the pumpkin queen #Stephen says #jack skellington #Sally