An appetizing premise, but this is a niche spread.
A gaggle of iconic monsters meet up for an infamously awful dinner.
Ever thought of slurping down “black-bile soup with rusty chain-link croutons”? How about chewing on some “spiced frog legs over grilled tails of newt”? Or “thinly sliced bat wings and rotten radishes”? High atop Shark Tooth Cliff sits the Rotten Core Restaurant, where these dishes and many more are served. One by one, the Big Bad Wolf, a vampire, a mummy, and others tuck in. The illustration style is Edward Gorey meets Richard Scarry, with burning pops of fire-engine red table linen contrasting with stark white backgrounds. Silver dishes are uncovered (page flaps allow readers to flip them over for themselves) to reveal disgusting feasts, customized for each attendee by Chef Frankenfurter. The book’s pattern—a character is introduced, followed by a lavish description of the meal in question—is intriguing, and initially, readers will savor the sense of anticipation and the visual gags. The repetition soon wears thin, however, as the narrative drags on. The novelty of the tactile page flaps (geared toward younger kids) is at odds with the advanced vocabulary: garnish, gait. The witch has green skin; other humanoid characters are light-skinned.
An appetizing premise, but this is a niche spread. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781419783371
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts.
What terrors lurk within your mouth? Jasper Rabbit knows.
“You have stumbled your way into the unknown.” The young bunny introduced in Reynolds and Brown’s Caldecott Honor–winning picture book, Creepy Carrots (2012), takes up Rod Serling’s mantle, and the fit is perfect. Mimicking an episode of The Twilight Zone, the book follows Charlie Marmot, an average kid with a penchant for the strange and unusual. He’s pleased when his tonsils become infected; maybe once they’re out he can take them to school for show and tell! That’s when bizarre things start to happen: Noises in the night. Slimy trails on his bedroom floor. And when Charlie goes in for his surgery, he’s told that the tonsils have disappeared from his throat; clearly something sinister is afoot. Those not yet ready for Goosebumps levels of horror will find this a welcome starter pack. Reynolds has perfected the tension he employed in his Creepy Tales! series, and partner in crime Brown imbues each illustration with both humor and a delicate undercurrent of dark foreshadowing. While the fleshy pink tonsils—the sole spot of color in this black-and-white world—aren’t outrageously gross, there’s something distinctly disgusting about them. And though the book stars cute, furry woodland creatures, the spooky surprise ending is 100% otherworldly—a marvelous moment of twisted logic.
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts. (Early chapter book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781665961080
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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