Skelly the skeleton girl, of the eponymous 2007 book, has lost her buttons. Her dog Femur has lost his bone. Her Venus flytraps have lost their spoons. The little ghoul-girl, hair in a bat-shaped bow, explores the house from bottom to top (with an unexplained diversion to the deep sea to investigate a sea monster’s lost anchor) and discovers that everyone has lost something. But in the attic? A mouse has used the purloined items to make an elaborate cheese machine. This flimsy excuse for a plot seems to exists only to support a series of elaborate, Tim Burton–esque tableaux. Kids may enjoy the baroque illustrations of this peculiar undead family, but they’re unlikely to ask for it more than once. (Picture book. 3-5)
