MIDNIGHT MANOR

Every day is Opposite Day (Opposite Night?) at Midnight Manor.

“It’s late in the day and the sun sinks low and it’s time to get up.” Wait: Get up? So it goes. A couple of young twins make their beds, a six-legged child puts on socks (and socks and socks), and soon it’s time for breakfast, followed by daily (read: nightly) tasks, among them counting the caterpillars on the curtains and greeting a variety of household creatures (“Hello to the Mothman in the music room. Hello to the Bigfoot in the study nook”). After some moonlight dancing until sunup, everyone is tuckered out, and it’s time to get ready for bed (“Goodnight to the phantom in the furnace. Goodnight to the troll on the toilet”). If readers hadn’t already clocked the book’s tip of the witch’s hat to Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon, the illustration for “Goodnight to the giant beetle under the bed” will fairly guarantee it: It features a green room appointed with several objects resembling those in the picture-book classic. Each of Sharp’s painstakingly composed paintings should both command interest and generate a raised eyebrow, especially the depiction of humanoid Hector detaching his head for use as a basketball. Surely there’s no better way to prepare young readers for the Addams Family than by introducing them to this book’s multiracial, multispecies homebodies.

All in good, creepy fun.