Kidsay Halloween poll

I surveyed kids in the fourth and fifth grades and asked them a few questions about Halloween. My first question was: Would you rather go trick-or-treating or have a party with your classmates in school? Here is what I found out:

Trick-or-treating.....157

Halloween party.....268

I also wanted to know that if they do decide to go trick-or-treating, would they rather go with family or friends. Here are my results:

With family........150

With friends.......265

As you can see, kids like being with their friends on Halloween, and they would much rather go to a party than just go door-to-door. Being with friends is such a fun way to celebrate!

Let's carve into it

If you saw Shawn Feeney on the Food Network program "Halloween Wars," you might think of him as just a pumpkin carver. No, he's much more, as we found out from our teacher, Kristen Christie. He grew up on Long Island and is almost like family to her. She has known his family for a long time. We saw him on "Halloween Wars," and she told us he even got to carve pumpkins at the White House.

Our teacher told us Shawn has been drawing things since he was a little kid. He was obsessed with comic books, mythology and monster movies. He started carving jack-o'-lanterns about nine years ago. He loves sculptures and Halloween, so it was a natural for him to get more creative with pumpkins. He mostly taught himself to draw and make sculptures.

He also took extra art classes in high school so he could draw as much as possible, our teacher said. He took a couple of sculpture classes to learn pumpkin-carving techniques. He found tutorials on the Internet. He is excited to continue his adventure with carving in his new company, The Invisible Underground. Besides pumpkins, he carves watermelons, bananas, carrots and much more.

He likes both drawing and carving, Ms. Christie said. He often sketches ideas before carving, and sometimes his carvings inspire drawings. Drawing is definitely less messy. He is really happy with his Sleeping Beauty pumpkin faces from "Halloween Wars."

To find out more about him, visit shawnfeeney.com.

-- NATALIA JORDAN AND SAMANTHA RIEB/Kidsday Reporters