Have you ever gone through a haunted house? This Halloween (2025) author, Patricia Polacco, and volunteers will host SPOOK-tacular scares and give out a full-sized candy bars! “The Graves Family” will once again open “their” home. Who, exactly, are the mysterious Graves? How did this house become a Union City tradition?

The Graves Family

The Graves Family picture book series, by Patricia Polacco, consists of “hair-raising” tales about an unusual family of seven who just want to fit into the Union City community. Their home, however, is draped in spiders and dead plants. Except for the ever-growing Venus Fly Trap, named Phoebe. In the story neighbors, Sara and Seth Miller, befriend the oldest son, Ronnie Graves, and are welcomed inside.

Then, a national magazine comes to town searching for a home with award-winning fall decor. Surprisingly, the Graves family wins. “The most perfect haunted house I have ever seen!” cheered the contest judge. “I love it! I love it!” In the first story the Graves family was featured in the Ladies Lovely Home Companion magazine, earning pride for Union City.

Halloween At The Graves’ Haunted House

As you crunch over fallen leaves, gargoyles greet you. Joining the line of costumed kids you can almost hear the snarling devil doorknocker whispering eerily, “Greetings,” as the children step over the threshold entering darkness.

As your eyes adjust to the dim light, creepy characters randomly jump out startling you. Slinking tentatively through each room, you encounter shocking scenes while scary screams echo through the walls. At the exit your prize is a full-sized candy bar!

Patricia Polacco

The Graves Family tales are a series of books written and illustrated by author, Patricia Polacco, who lives across the street from The Graves Family home. These fictional stories are completely opposite of her typical tales rooted in rich family experiences.

What has been this author’s path? How did she start hosting haunted capers in a nearby house? Well, this story starts with Patricia Barber who was born on a sweltering July day in 1944.

Early Years – Patricia Barber

Born in Lansing, Michigan on July 11, 1944, Patricia Barber, “Trisha,” grew up surrounded by family stories told by “Babushka,” her Ukrainian grandmother and her Irish grandparents on her father’s side.

When she was three her parents divorced. Patrica lived in California with her mother and spent summers with her father and his parents in Michigan. She absorbed these family legends and carried them in her soul.

Patricia’s artistic talents soared. Yet, she had struggled to learn to read. Lining up numbers for math problems had been impossible. Dyslexia had made the spaces around letters and numbers more prominent. Her teacher, “Mr. Falker,” had worked with her to unlock the magic of reading and math.

College Years

Patricia went on to study art history in Melbourne, Australia, earning a Ph.D. She had commented,  “…that all of my neighbors came in as many colors, ideas, and religions as there are people on the planet. How lucky I was to know so many people that were so different and yet so much alike.”

During her post-graduate work, she met an Italian chef, Enzo Polacco. He had been a Holocaust survivor with many stories to add to their family’s anthology. The two were married in 1979.

Career

Patricia had worked as a museum consultant specializing in icon restoration as well as Russian and Greek paintings.

When her children were born, Patricia decided to dedicate her days to Steven and Traci. One of her favorite things had been retelling family stories to her children, always adding Babushka’s saying, “Of course, it’s true—but it may not have happened.”

Patricia’s First Book

When Steven was diagnosed with diabetes, Patricia illustrated a wordless picture book of self-care for her son. This had helped Steven grasp these challenging concepts.

Family Stories

Patricia had spent time writing down her ancestor’s tales and drawing illustrations to accompany the stories. Her mother, Doris Barber, a school teacher, had been so confident in the quality of her daughter’s writing and artistic interpretations, that Doris encouraged Patricia to meet with publishers in New York City.

Publishing

It was 1985. With seven or eight manuscripts in hand, 41 year-old Patricia Polacco traveled to Manhattan and met with sixteen different publishing companies. Her mother’s instincts had been spot-on. Contracts were signed. Patricia Polacco began her second career as a children’s book author with Meteor being published in 1987.

Meteor

Meteor weaves magical tales of the Union City residents when a large rock from outer space had landed on her grandparents’ Michigan farm. Today, this meteor serves as her mother’s headstone. Patricia even named her home, “Meteor Ridge Farm.”

Story Time With Mrs. Hayden

After I read Meteor to my first and second grade students, a small black stone would be reverently passed around the circle of toothless grins. Each child would grasp the rock and make a wish. Each year my class would experience the magic of Patricia Polacco’s Meteor.

I have shared Patricia Polacco’s narratives with youngsters throughout my career. Her beautifully illustrated stories are shrouded in meaningful connections as well as life lessons.

Meeting Patricia Polacco

Meeting authors gives me the same excitement some others feel when making the acquaintance of a sports figure or a movie star. Over the past decades, I have been fortunate to attend Patricia Polacco’s book signings, presentations and even an open house where I have met my hero author in her home. So, when I recently read that The Graves Family haunted house was going to be opening again this year, I was ecstatic to share the news! How did this spooky tradition start?

Union City’s Haunted House

Patricia Polacco had moved back to Michigan in 1994. A couple of years later her mother, Doris, had purchased the old house across the street. She’d planned on tearing it down and building a studio for writing and illustrating books.

When Halloween rolled around in 1999, fifty-five year old Trisha and her brother, Richie, decided to pass out candy from that old house. With wide-eyed grins the pair recalled their childhood memories of going through haunted houses back in California: Ocean View Drive and behind Oakland Tech. Trisha had nodded to her brother, “If these kids want giant sized Snickers . . . they have to work for it.” She recounted to an audience, “THAT, my friends . . is how the whole Graves Family legacy began.”

The entire house was set up with frightening displays and costumed ghouls. Cases of candy bars were stacked near the exit. On Halloween, the line of costume-clad kids extended out to the street.

After that first Halloween, Patricia Polacco began brewing ideas about the family who “lived” in the house. The father’s experimental laboratory in the basement where he has concocted a hair-growing salve. The mother, a chef, who wilts flowers as she walks by. Ronnie and his four sisters living among spider-dressed walls and Phoebe, the expansive Venus Fly Trap. The Graves Family took shape in Patricia’s imagination and has been sculpted into stories for the young and old alike.

Invitation

I hope you get the chance to visit The Graves Family Haunted House this year! It’s opening for the first time in quite a while.

I also hope that you and your family will enjoy reading Patricia Polacco’s stories. She has 115 books published, so far. I can promise that these stories will stay in your heart.

Resources:

Patricia Polacco’s Facebook Page
Patricia Polacco’s Facebook Page 2003
PFD Patricia Polacco Autobiography
Patricia Polacco’s website Meteor
Reading Rockets article
Moon Bridge Books interview
Patricia Polacco’s open house 2017
Patricia Polacco’s Willard Library presentation 2023
Thought Co. article