Good-natured, spine-tingling fun.
When the kids are away, the ghosts will play.
Narrator and king of ghosts Rex Magnificus, a skeletal creature with a white Prince Valiant hairstyle, hosts an annual private party for his fellow apparitions that begins at midnight after Halloween: “From every corner of the world, / to one small place they’re bound: / my haunted and mysterious, / fantastical playground.” On this special night, the ghosts don Halloween costumes that were abandoned at the playground and get a reprieve from the obligation to frighten people. But what’s this? A pajama-clad girl and boy (both tan-skinned with rubbery features) arrive, saying they live next door and that the party woke them up. Rex’s attempt to scare them off fails, and the kids join the cavorting ghosts. After Rex tries some carousing, he has a predictable Grinch-like epiphany: “Truth be told, these strange events / have turned out quite delightful.” Palacio, the author of, among other kids’ books, the middle-grade sensation Wonder (2012), serves up a few hiccupy rhymes, but most are snappy and well crafted. As for the story, it may not have needed all of Rex’s verbiage—he’s quite the windbag—although Helquist’s oils do capture the formidability that Palacio seems to be going for. The playground’s eye-snaring carnival colors are a dazzling counterpoint to the soft-lined, swirling, white ghost bodies.
Good-natured, spine-tingling fun. (Picture book. 4-8.)Pub Date: July 21, 2026
ISBN: 9798217029280
Page Count: 50
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A top-grade creepy/funny addition to the spooky-picture-book canon.
Is a cute kitty built in a castle’s laboratory responsible for the bad things that start happening?
“Here is a tale to chill the blood and thrill the soul—a tale of spooky paws and eerie claws.” The disembodied talking skull who narrates this story is alluding to Frankenkitty, who was engineered out of multiple cats, with visible stitches to show for it. As the house ghouls look on, Frankenkitty’s inventor laments, “I’ve created a monster!” Sure enough, bad things start happening: The mummy begins to unravel. Kitchen mice terrorize the cook. Certainly, Frankenkitty must be to blame. But after the butler, who resembles Frankenstein’s Monster, tosses Frankenkitty outside into the snow, where he looks forlorn and adorable, the skull has second thoughts: “Wait! Did we get it wrong?” It’s up to readers to make the call. Powell-Tuck goes all in with her spoof of old-time horror tropes, although kids needn’t know who Boris Karloff is to be tickled. For the book’s every scare (a severed foot and hand, their bones visible), there’s a wink (in a bit of metafictive fun, the skull urges readers to opt for a story about “unicorns, beasts, or bears”). Grey, a glutton for detail, leans on menacing reds and sickly greens to capture the frights, which include, in a line for the spooky-story ages, “walls as gray as old underpants.” Human characters vary in skin tone.
A top-grade creepy/funny addition to the spooky-picture-book canon. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781664300972
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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