OOPS! I JUST ATE YOU.

A ravenous zombie rhymes about his difficulty making friends.

This book’s undead narrator (purple hair, green jack-o’-lantern-like head) has been feeling out of sorts: “Although I was starving / I didn’t want meat. / I was hungry for FRIENDS! / Some new folks to meet!” His methods are unconventional: Whenever he makes a friendship overture, he ends up devouring the potential pal (“Oops! I just ate you!”). When the villagers (a racially diverse bunch, like the rest of the cast) get hip to what’s happening, they form an angry mob, but they are no match for the zombie (“Oops! I just ate you! You! And you!”). Then things turn meta: “The pages start ripping, / ’cause I’m breaking through! / With a LOUD final: ‘Oops! / I just ate…,’” and then there’s a close-up of the zombie’s wide-open mouth, the idea being that readers won’t be alive to complete the rhyme with the word you. Is it obvious by now that this isn’t a story in which the zombie vomits up the people he ate and no one is worse for wear? Working with markers in a Halloweenish palette, Camp captures the zombie’s drool and even depicts him just after he has yanked off his own head. The whole thing is percussively rhymed, illustrated with an uninhibited child’s gusto, quite amusing, and a little disgusting.

Funny, audacious, and not for the faint of heart.