Silly supernatural fun.
A bloodsucking creature of the night crosses paths with a jam sandwich.
“Would you like to hear a scary story?” asks a large-eyed, lugubrious child with a red bow tie, holding a flashlight as a striped cat looks on. After building suspense for a few pages, the youngster obliges. “The story goes that long ago, a vampire—possibly named Terrence—snuck into someone’s kitchen and took a bite out of their jam sandwich. The vampire probably thought the jam was…something else”; when a sleepy, nightgown-clad child (apparently Terrence’s sibling) soon awakened and entered the kitchen, Terrence fled, leaving behind a jam sandwich minus one bite. Now the sandwich is cursed, destined to search the night for more jam! Unless…readers keep their preserves secure. The narrator offers a few insincere suggestions for doing so, such as storing your jam in the backyard or on a window ledge. By this time, readers will be in on the joke: Terrence and our narrator are one and the same. Is the protagonist a vampire? Or just a conniving youngster trying to trick audiences out of their jam? Kids can judge for themselves. Lyall’s text begs to be read aloud in dramatically spooky tones, while Gregory’s illustrations, rendered in a sepia-toned palette with pops of red, are deliciously creepy; the fang-gnashing, jam-drooling, unibrowed sandwich is a particular delight. The human characters are pale-skinned.
Silly supernatural fun. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781774883464
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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