VAMPIRE JAM SANDWICH

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.