Welcome to the night, with this month’s bewitching Cricket.

While crossing the bridge into town, Tamitha meets a troll-witch who threatens to turn her into an . . . echidna! Join the fun in “The Troll-Witch,” as Tamitha outsmarts an adversary with a fixation on all things Australian. 

The night is long indeed in “The Long Night.” In this sci-fi adventure, only one boy is resistant to the mysterious Hibernation Instinct. Find out what he discovers in the sky while the whole world sleeps. 

Worms are very interesting. Really! In “Creepy Crawly Creatures” the owner of a family bait shop tells all about night crawlers, including how to catch them for your next fishing adventure.

Salt was once as valuable as many precious metals and, in Poland, the Wieliczka salt mine was a source of revenue for the entire country for centuries. In the historical fiction “Salt of the Earth,” you’ll learn what it was like to labor deep under the ground, where a young miner finds not only salt, but the ghostly Warden.

Some consider King Richard III of England of the House of York to be a villain. Others regard him as a reform-minded monarch—the victim of bad press generated by the victorious House of Lancaster, whose descendants commissioned Shakespeare to write a play about the “poisonous, bunch-backed toad.” “Return of a King” tells both sides of Richard’s story, as well as about the amazing recent discovery of his long-forgotten burial place, in the ruins of an ancient monastery beneath a modern car-park.

There’s the conclusion of Gillian’s thespian adventures in “A New and Distant Star,” a visit from trick-or-treating aliens in Cricket Country, and a new poetry contest. It all adds up to a witches brew of fun in this month’s Cricket. Trick-or-Treat!