And it wouldn't be Halloween without candy

"Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America" by Steve Almond (Algonquin Books, 264 pages, $21.95.)
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --Sink your teeth into Steve Almond's book, " Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America," and you'll be transported back to the very moment you bit into your first candy bar.
"Candyfreak" is not just a nostalgia trip. It's not just a touching memoir by a lonely man who all his life has sought solace in Hot Tamales, jawbreakers, Lemonheads, Red Hots, and a host of other candy with equally delicious names. It also is an expos & eacute; of -- a rant, really, against -- the global consolidation of the candy industry. When Almond was a kid, every region had its own special candy-bar brand. Now thousands of mom-and-pop operations have been gobbled up by one of three giants left standing: Hershey's, Nestl & eacute; and Mars.
As a result, many of those candy bars you couldn't live without when you were a kid have melted away.
The Caravelle
The Caravelle was Almond's all-time favorite. And, the devastating loss of that childhood pleasure, in fact, was one of the things that prompted him to write "Candyfreak."
"Art arises from loss," he reminds us.
The other is that Almond figured out he could get free candy if he toured some of the last small, independently owned candy factories in America and told them he was writing a book.
He travels from Vermont to California, documenting how the Valomilk, the Idaho Spud, the Goo Goo Cluster and the Abba-Zaba, some of the last of this country's regional candy bars, are made. It is a scrumptious tour, told with high humor and exacting detail.
"Candyfreak" is not without its faults. It's exasperating to read about the tons of candy Almond consumes per diem without gaining weight. And as we travel from factory to factory, his stories get repetitive, like the movie "Groundhog Day," only the day keeps repeating is Halloween (the only day, he points out, when kids are encouraged to accept candy from strangers). He also conveniently glides over some of the larger, more troubling, issues involving candy consumption and the candy industry.
Behind the obsession
Almond's excuse for his candy obsession is pretty lame. It's the excuse of any addict -- or freak, as he prefers to call himselff: We don't choose our freaks, they choose us.
He admits his defense of a product that is basically "crack for children" does make him somewhat of a hypocrite. And, while he does bemoan the fact that the sugar and cocoa needed to supply us with our chocolate fixes are usually grown by Third World folk who in a year earn just enough to buy a Snickers bar. But these twinges of conscience take up about, oh, one page out of 264.
Scripps Howard