BEASTLY RHYMES TO READ AFTER DARK

“Annie’s babies like to bite. / Annie’s babies howl all night. / In the daytime, they’re much calmer. / They are werewolves like their mama.” In a compact follow-up to her popular Monster Goose (2001), illustrated by Jack E. Davis, Sierra offers a handful of short verses—introducing several types of monsters, describing the fatal effort of diner Norman Noodlebutt to rid himself of a tapeworm (“Parasite Lost”), detailing the disgusting menu at the “Twisted Tongue Restaurant” and like excursions into the gross and nasty. Biggs contributes loud, crowded cartoon illustrations in appropriately queasy colors, and the poet signs off with an invitation to young readers to pen “beastly rhymes of your invention.” Who could resist? Certainly not the elementary schoolkids this package patently aims for: “A darling baby crocodile / Departed from the River Nile, / ...She settled in the loathsome pool / Beneath the bathroom of your school.” The trade edition is bound in appealingly hideous, mottled-green fake fur. (Poetry. 6-8)