TEN CREEPY MONSTERS

This countdown romp begins with a front-cover portrait of 10 smiling and grimacing monsters before they set forth on their perilous adventure.

“Ten creepy monsters met ’neath a gnarled pine. / One [a ghost] blew away, and then there were nine.” So continues the predictable rhyme, with the various creatures meeting mostly unfortunate ends: The zombie loses his foot, the mummy snags his wrappings, and the vampire glances at the sunrise. Some do not perish but are only distracted; the werewolf cannot resist howling at a shocked full moon, and the sea monster, in one of the funnier (though incongruous) spreads, “found his love,” who is a startled woman in a bathing suit and cat’s-eye glasses near the shore. As the numbers dwindle, only a squat, goblin-green monster remains, until this “one creepy monster rushed home at a run.” The page turn reveals a green mask hanging from a bedpost, Halloween candy spilling out from a sack underneath the bed and a contented boy, who “pulled up his blanket, and then there were none.” Armstrong-Ellis injects just the right amount of humor into her portrayals of the ghoulish bunch, keeping the tone appropriately light, despite the body count.

Best for younger readers who prefer thrills and chills with an occasional giggle.