The Awfully Bizarre & Creepy Book of Halloween

This book is well named. It is a collection of rhyming couplets about something related to Halloween; most are monsters but there are also a few surprises like N is for nightmares and Q is for quicksand. Almost all of the couplets are funny and include sage advice like “I is for Incantation/ A curse you can invoke/ I bumped a wizard at the store/ Now I’m an artichoke.”

The artwork is funny and cartoonish in a great way. The layout is nice and helps the book flow, while the images themselves are so much fun. Each appears to be hand-drawn in pen and ink and then painted in a style that looks like newspaper cartoons. They are highly detailed and will be a delight to children who like pointing out the funny things they find.

The advanced vocabulary may require some explanation to the younger readers (like the scarecrow who is “sans a brain”) but the short pieces of text will help to move things along. The brief rhyming passages make this one very easy to read aloud. The rhythm is good and most of the couplets are fully humorous.

Age recommendations are really dependent on the vocabulary of the child or the willingness of an adult to explain. Typically, ABC books are targeted at beginning readers but this one works for older children, too. It’s an excellent choice for anyone needing a comical, rhyming, not too intimidating Halloween picture book.