A little ghost, desperate to be scary, tries on disguise after disguise in vain before landing on the perfect costume. A Frankenstein mask fails to scare the baby; a vampire costume just irritates his sister; the cat unravels his mummy wrappings. Fenton employs a limited palette of blues, blacks and whites with yellow accents to create a suitably spooky atmosphere. Soft, rounded shapes blunt any possible scary edges: The ghost and his family all have giant, circular heads with wispy teardrop bodies; round shapes and lines abound in the backgrounds. The only text—iterations of “BOOO” in varying lengths—adds still more roundness. Unfortunately, however well-suited to very young audiences this might seem, several spreads in which the young ghost appears multiple times combined with the lack of distinctiveness among the other characters will confuse toddlers. (Picture book. 3-5)
