THE SCARIEST STORY YOU'VE EVER HEARD

A pair of brothers encounter a late-night terror in Keres’ spooky children’s tale.

This isn’t a picture book—not exactly. The narrator warns the audience that this story is “much too scary for PICTURES, so I plan to use WORDS.” While the words tell the story as text, they also, in Lin’s deft design, serve as illustrations. When the power goes out one stormy night, a scream wakes two brothers, who lie in bed, terrified. More unsettling noises follow, including creaks and cracks and thumps and growls. The presumed monster’s noises seem to fade, but then additional sounds make the boys curious enough to get over their fears and investigate (though they keep their blanket over their heads). When they reach the kitchen, the terror is undermined with a single comedic illustration that reveals all. (Some savvy readers may have guessed the identity of the culprit all along.) Mini-illustrations of each noise-causing event follow, laid out like a treasure map. The gorgeous use of words and shapes—the word door appears against a door’s outline, for example, and the word covers has a blanket over it—gives readers’ imaginations a chance to run wild. A kids’ picture book without traditional illustrations hasn’t been this much fun since B.J. Novak’s excellent The Book With No Pictures (2014)—Keres and Lin have created a joyfully creepy companion.

Perfect for Halloween storytimes—or any time at all.