FRANKENSTEIN TAKES THE CAKE
by Adam Rex & illustrated by Adam Rex
A snort-inducing companion to 2006’s Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, Rex’s return to horror-poetry finds the green-skinned monster getting ready for his wedding, complete with a comic-strip visit to his future mother-in-law (“I’m not trying to be mean, but I never thought my little girl would be marrying someone green”) and best man Dracula encountering garlic bread at the buffet. In between, Edgar Allan Poe struggles repeatedly to find a rhyme scheme, the Headless Horseman blogs about the difficulties of using a pumpkin for a head and a quartet of haiku celebrates Japanese monster cinema (“A winter wager: / Will Godzilla’s tongue freeze to / Mechagodzilla?”). It’s a dizzying pastiche of artistic and poetic styles that includes an advertisement for witch diet products (“...with only one bucket of water a day!”) and a faux-Peanuts Sunday strip featuring a Charlie Brown–like Dracula Jr. Some of the humor will resonate more with adults than kids, but there’s something in here for just about everyone—even a grouchy raven. (Picture book/poetry. 7-12)