NIGHTMARES: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep

Whether or not they trouble your sleep, Prelutsky's ogre's gallery makes other monster poems turn pale. The company numbers thirteen from Will o' the Wisp to Bogeyman and includes loose-jointed skeletons who will set tongues dancing ""with the click and the clack/and the chitter and the chack/ and the clatter and the chatter/of their bare bare bones"" and a grisly schoolyard ghoul who'll make mincemeat of your funnybone. The all-stops-open rhythm swings along with never a break or groan, and Lobel, disguised as Edward Gorey for the occasion, falls into the spirit of morbid glee. The whole performance is as polished as a vampire's incisor.