Here, Child, Finish Your Nothing

Mirror
by Suzy Lee
New York : Seven Footer Kids, 2003

Mirror, by Suzy Lee, is a very simple, elegant wordless book that, if read properly, will trigger an existential crisis (or philosophical breakthrough) in readers of any age. If your child is too young for Sartre, but old enough to feel the burden of consequence and self-determination, then this is the perfect introduction to instill that lasting sense of angst, guilt and self-doubt.

Despite the austerity of the artwork, there is whimsy in its pages, but by the last page, all such feelings of merriment are dashed. The cover encapsulates this dynamic perfectly; the girl, facing away from her reflection, may have a hint of a smile on her lips, but it never quite reaches her eyes. There is a sense that she is disconnected from herself, perhaps dissatisfied with the stark world in which she has been drawn, even as she plays with her own medium. Of course, this could all be projection...

"We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are..."

One of the most interesting things about this book is the way the book itself is part of the unspoken narrative. The "mirror" is actually the crease between pages. It is no simple mirror, however, as the girl is not simple reflected in its pages. At one point, the girl mischievously moves into the crease, emerging with her reflection facing in the same direction she is. Of course, we all know what generally happens when little girls walk into mirrors.

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

In its way, the artwork in Mirror is sweet, and the girl's interactions with her own reflection are the product of playful innocence. Don't be fooled, though. In the last few pages, the girl becomes annoyed with her reflected self, and in a fit manages to push her other, knocking down the mirror (Lee's work here is brilliant, by the way) and shattering it. Spoiler alert: the last page consists of the little girl curled in on herself, and you can almost hear her sobbing into her arms. It came as a shock, I have to admit; though we review horror for children, I have rarely seen a story for kids with such an unrelentingly depressing ending. I have to say, I respect it.

So, if you're ready to crush your child's innocence, or they're already showing a predilection for German expressionism and long-sleeve black turtlenecks, this is a great book. Just know what your child may grow into:

"We are our choices."

Tweaking and Sociopathy for Kids

Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear

by Ken Kesey

New York, NY: Viking, 1990.

Finding this book on the shelf at the library was an experience all its own. Take a good look at that cover. Really look at it. Imagine seeing only the top half of it. Those eyes. Those horrible, all-too-human eyes! Those are not the eyes of one of Goldilocks' three bears. Those bears do not hate like this bear hates. This is a stone cold killer, waiting for you to let down your guard. This will not end happily!

Then, after pulling the book off the shelf (the eyes compelled you to), you see the name of the author; yes, yes it is that Ken Kesey. The only person who could write a children's book this bizarre. You know, the same Ken Kesey who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and drives around in a real life "Magic School Bus":

"Navigate a nostril... spank a plankton too!"

The inside of the book is every bit as crazy and horrifying as the cover advertises. The bear on the cover is the titular Big Double, a monstrous brute who wanders through the woodland equivalent of a trailer park, eating every one of the creatures he meets, all of whom appear to be destitute and possibly addicted to drugs (at least, that is the effect of Barry Moser's illustrations). Each resident Big Double meets tries to escape him by a challenge of abilities, which the bear matches just before eating them whole. Big Double, by the by, bears a passing resemblance to another famous Ken Kesey character.

Note the Cap...

The protagonist of this story is Little Tricker the squirrel, whose primary redeeming feature is his ability to make a fool out of Big Double. Tricker only seems to have two main motivations: laziness and hunger. Until his meeting with Big Double, his only real struggle is between warring impulses to go get food to store for the winter, or to take a nap. Mostly, the nap wins. Incidentally, Tricker looks very much like he could be on meth-amphetamines, which makes him just about the most realistically depicted squirrel in all of children's literature.

As promised, the story ends awfully. In order to escape, Little Tricker lives up to his name, and tricks Big Double into leaping over the side of a wooded hill, where he then "splatters on the hillside like a thumping ripe melon". Certainly, this book is not meant to be read aloud to kids, right? Except that, like The Talking Eggs, Little Tricker is best enjoyed for its rich and highly accented language, which can only be really appreciated when it's performed.

With all that in mind, I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to read a good modern variation on the classic trope of little people fending off scary animals. The language is violent in a way that few childrens' stories are, and it takes a certain amount of judgement to decide what the appropriate age is. Take heart, however, because with that glaring cover, it's unlikely any child is going to pick this book up unless they are comfortable with Big Double's gaze in the first place. For that alone, they should be congratulated (and probably feared just a little).

Scary Stories Curing Stage Fright?

Scary Readers Theatre
by Suzanne I. Barchers
Libraries Unlimited, 1994

In my days as a children’s librarian and as mentor to early readers I started to come across articles and happen into conversations about Reader’s Theatre. While I’ve heard of the concept before as another mode for actors to express themselves, blocking and performing with scripts instead of memorizing lines, I hadn’t known much about it as a device for education. Looking through listservs I started to see more and more use of reader’s theatre as a way for children to practice reading aloud in a nonthreatening, fun way. Not only that, the concept helps foster reading comprehension, as oftentimes children are given the freedom to take an existing story and adapt it to suit their interpretation or interests. Exercises such as this can help develop strong narrative skills. I think this type of set up can do wonders for the reluctant reader, those wishing to enhance their writing skills (through adapting a story), as well as the shy public speaker. Without the threat of forgetting lines, with encouragement from teachers and librarians, and with plenty of opportunities to practice, get creative, and to explore, I think Reader's Theatre is a positive way to promote literacy among youth.

This being a scary books blog I just had to find out if there were books out there, with an odd or spooky twist, that followed the principles of reader’s theatre. I was looking to see if there was a book that was suitable for school age children and one that gave them opportunities for freedom of expression through writing, creating/adapting scripts, dramatic expression, etc. I couldn’t find anything at my local library but through my university library I found an electronic resource for Scary Readers Theatre by Suzanne I. Barchers. I was stoked to find a scary book that was specifically designed for a reader’s theatre project. This book provided scripted adaptations of 30 popular scary stories, myths, multinational folktales, and urban legends. Due to the methodical nature of the scripts, sometimes the stories seemed a bit dry and unappealing. Hopefully, in such instances, this is where a child could unleash their creativity to save the story by employing an interesting vocal tactic or modifying the flow of the text. This book employed a rating system of scary, scarier, and scariest and it seemed to have a good mix of stories on all levels for elementary and middle school age children. I think this book was a good first find for a reader’s theater piece, especially since it takes away the pressure of script adaptation. In that sense, the work is already done for you. This book is a great start, but I hope there is more out there. If not, we need to make some! These types of books are great to help encourage literacy, with a spooky bent, in schools, libraries, and after-school programs.

A Nice Spot of Ink to Cure What Ails You

The Ink Drinker

by Eric Sanvoisen
Illustrated by Martin Matje
Random House Books for Young Readers, 2002

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the blog has been inactive since summertime. While we all truly love this blog, it is a labor of love that sometimes has to take the backseat to other calls of duty, be they work, school, fighting the zombie invasion, etc. That being said, I just couldn’t let October slip by without a post or two. If there was ever a time for some spooky reading, it has to be October. Here is my first selection to kick off some reading before Halloween!

One thing that I often struggled with when I was working as a Children’s Librarian was getting the reluctant reader to embrace reading. How do you motivate a child that says to you they simply don’t like reading?

After many creative strategies, I think suggesting this book could be another welcome tactic. The Ink Drinker by Eric Sanvoisen is an early chapter book suitable for 8-10 year olds. The tale, originally published in France, is mildly horrible, more bizarre than scary, so it is palatable to a wide audience from those who love vampire tales to those who love silly stories and/or strangeness.

The book begins with a simple and cruel irony. A boy who despises books with a book loving father finds himself stuck in his father’s book shop for the summer. The pain, the sorrow, the agony of being forced to work in a bookstore all summer is more than our protagonist can stand. To pass the time he hides in the shop, daydreams, and people watches. One day he notices a very odd customer. The customer, a pale stranger, practically floating (is he floating?) delicately carries a straw and slips it between the pages of books and slurps. The boy’s horrified gasp causes the stranger to flee. Upon inspection of the volume the stranger held the boy notices that all the pages have been wiped (drank?) clean of any ink, except just a letter or two. Shocked, yet painfully curious, the boy rushes after the stranger into the cemetery where he discovers Draculink, the ink drinking vampire. As the book unfolds the boy finds himself on a journey to explain the mysterious nature of ink drinking. When his father catches him drinking ink the reader realizes just how first-hand the boy’s journey has become.

The quick narrative, the accompanying illustrations, and the elegant strangeness of this tale prove to be strong temptations that would hook any reader. In addition to being a great standalone book, I was happy to learn this title is the first in a full Ink Drinker series. Hopefully this quirky vampire tale can get you in the Halloween spirit. Stay tuned for more upcoming posts!

Of Hateful Hippos and Hissing Cobras

Never Smile at a Monkey
by Steve Jenkins
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009

If legendary children's author Eric Carle ever developed a grumpy side, he would have written something similar to Steve Jenkins' misanthropic animal book, Never Smile at a Monkey, a compendium of some of the world's most malicious and dangerous animals.

This book is for the more skeptical child, who recognizes that, behind all the soft fur and cute noises, most of our world's most adorable animals are also brimming with spite. Steve Jenkins pulls no punches, and writes with the sort of brutal honesty a growing child needs; after all, in a world that contains such horrors as the duckbill platypus, we should always remember to stay on our guard. In addition to the brief descriptions of the horrifying reality of each animal's life, Jenkins helpfully includes an appendix which tells you where not to go if you want to avoid these malevolent creatures, plus additional information in case your first encounter didn't quite convince you.

A sort of anti-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, the creatures in Never Smile at a Monkey could have been created by Bill Martin Jr.'s evil alter ego; they aren't quite bathed in blood and vitriol, but some of them wear expressions that tell you they soon might be. My personal favorite is the hippo, whose brown, hateful eyes make it look like an angry drunk on a bender, though the spitting cobra is clearly having none of it. Even the stingray, whose eyes are beguilingly innocent, resonates with danger. These illustrations are hilarious in their sincerity, as if they are daring you to laugh. It's hard to look at that glaring monkey face and not laugh, and therein lies the true danger of this book. Because, really, you shouldn't ever smile at a monkey.

Revolting Fun

Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes
by Roald Dahl
Illustrations by Quentin Blake
New York : Knopf, 1983

Roald Dahl’s taste for the macabre has always shown itself in the wonderfully revolting villains of his children’s novels (the disgusting subject matter of The Twits and The Witches comes to mind) and in the twisted parables for a more mature audience found in his short stories for adults. Revolting Rhymes is Dahl’s take on the traditional fairy tales of old. The results are hilarious and disturbing. Goldilocks is a spoiled brat who pays dearly for an act of home invasion; the three little pigs learn a painful lesson about home construction; Jack discovers that personal hygiene can be a matter of life and death when dealing with giants; Cinderella finds relationships to be gruesomely complicated; Snow White and the Seven Dwarves take on the world of gambling; and we see the darker side of Little Red Riding Hood.

I first heard Revolting Rhymes during a story hour from my Language Arts teacher when I was in the third grade and it quickly became a favorite. The subversive tone behind the stories matched well with an interest in creepy fiction (courtesy of Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies for “younger readers”) that I was cultivating at the time. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” stuck out for me the most because of the poetic fate that Papa Bear decides for the greedy little girl who slurped down his son’s porridge as her final act. Each tale is told as a poem and Dahl’s lyricism makes these stories great to read aloud. Quentin Blake’s illustrations complement the verse perfectly in their portrayals of Dahl’s bizarre and often grotesque characters.

Although Dahl offered his own twist on these classic tales, his sardonic humor definitely echoes some of the darkness found in some of the original source materials. Particularly in the Brothers Grimm anthologies, repugnant characters met with gruesome ends and life lessons were often harsh, even in the land of make-believe.

Looking for a Good Halloween Costume?

The Gruesome Guide to World Monsters
by Judy Sierra; illustrated by Henrik Drescher
Cambridge, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2005

As encyclopedias go, The Gruesome Guide to World Monsters is one of the more interesting ones out there. The creatures in this book are enough to inspire madness in even the most rational of minds. Even more terrible - all of them are real!

This collection of dread fiends is inspired by actual folk-tales from around the world, with helpful pointers on how to avoid them (if you can). Every monster is rated on a scale from one to five skulls, from mere fright to inevitable death, and a description of where it makes its horrible, horrible home (so you can avoid there).

The author of this book, Judy Sierra, grew up in the DC area, and has been a children's librarian, puppeteer and folklorist for most of her life. She is also the author of another great spooky volume, Monster Goose. What's really great about the Gruesome Guide is that Sierra sticks to creatures you've probably never heard of, organized by the region they came from. You won't find vampires, werewolves or goblins in this book. No, instead it's Ahuizotl, Nkanyamba, or Bunyip . Great for that unique Halloween costume you've been trying to find...

The art in this book is equally great. Henrik Drescher's style (somewhere between Clive Barker and Dave McKean) is simultaneously fleshy and free-form; his monsters look like they were picked out of a madman's nightmares (not that this humble blogger would have any idea what a madman's nightmares look like... not at all...). So, if you're in the mood for something unusual to talk about at the party (or just like to look at scary monsters), find this book, and pay close attention. After all, you don't want one of these things to find you...

Brains at Every Single Meal, Why Can't We Have Some Guts?

Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich
by Adam Rex
Harcourt, Inc., 2006

It is most certainly impossible to not fall madly in love with monsters after reading Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich (byline: And other stories you’re sure to like, because they’re about monsters, and some of them are also about food. You like food don’t you? Well, alright then.). Author/illustrator Adam Rex, utilizing the literary art of poetry, presents a creative anthology of monster stories.

The title poem of the book sets the pace for rhymes that effortlessly roll off the page and off the tongue. The liquidity of the text throughout the book makes it quite a lyrical read-aloud as well as an enjoyable treat for solo reading. “When Frankenstein prepared to dine on ham-and-cheese on wheat, he found, instead, he had no bread, (or mustard, cheese, or meat).” Some other characters featured throughout the book include the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, the Yeti, and the Phantom of the Opera, to name a few. Some of the characters appear once, and some are featured a few times. For instance, the Phantom of the Opera has a few poems dedicated to him for his inability to get catchy tunes out of his head while he tries to compose his arias (my personal favorite when he can’t get “The Girl from Ipanema” out of his head). The poems in this book create silly scenarios, such as spinach remaining stuck in Dracula’s fangs because everyone is too afraid to tell him its there. Possibly better yet, these poems are a wealth of valuable information, such as suggesting one to make a hat out of carrots so zombies will abstain from your brain.

To complete a poetry collection as varied and bizarre as this, Rex created accompanying illustrations that are purely magical. Paying homage to famous illustrators of children’s literature throughout the book, such as Richard Scarry and Tony Diterlizzi, he showcases a diverse color and style palette. The variations of media to represent the different personalities of each creature was an act of simple beauty. Vibrant colors, detailed ink drawings, and shiny black and whites are a few of the impressive artistic techniques employed. Overall, this book is the perfect marriage of silliness, gentle gore, flowing text, and smooth illustrations. I think children will delight in this book and quite simply, gobble it up. Just like Frankenstein did with that molding heap of unsavory edibles. Bon appétit!

It's All About the Hair

The Witch's Child
by Arthur Yorinks; illustrated by Jos A. Smith
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2007

The Witch's Child is one of the most seriously creepy children's books I've come across in a good, long while. The illustrations are terrifying; the Witch Rosina's posture drips with menace. The story draws from the fairy tale tradition, a cross between Hansel and Gretel and Pinocchio, and doesn't shy from the dark nature of the form; the result being a tale full of the kind of magic and terror of the true classics.

Rosina is a violent and cruel witch who, on a whim, decides to try creating a child for herself out of spare rags and straw, and bits of her own hair. However, she can't bring the little doll to life no matter how hard she tries, and in a fit of pique turns all the other children to bramble bushes. Finally, Rosina casts the doll aside, to be found later by a young girl named Lina, who rearranges her limbs and treats her with kindness. Rosina finds Lina with her forgotten child, and attacks her with knife in hand. The ending is happy, but it's paid for with a terrible price.

The Witch's Child is by turns stark and hopeful, with the occasional moment of truly off-putting humor thrown in - Rosina's smile is actually worse than her scowl, if you'd believe it. The "life" of the doll is also full of childhood fears, abandonment chief among them. However, the really wonderful part of this story is in the nature of her awakening - unlike Pinocchio, who requires an external conscience and is brought to life by someone else's love, the doll child wills herself into life to protect someone else from her own creator. The message of self-determination is subtle, but empowering.

Don't let the seemingly snuggly cover illustration fool you: this book is one of those really great scary stories that reminds me of why I love horror. Smith's illustrations are downright beautiful; from the first page, even Rosina's posture drips with malicious intent. The curse she lays on the children is captured mid-transformation, as is their eventual return. More sensitive children might be disturbed by the imagery and the content of the story, but, like The Spider and the Fly, and most fairy tales, for that matter, the object is to teach them to have a healthy respect for their own fears and (hopefully) to inspire them to rise above it.