Skip to main content

If You Like...Monsters

Image
By
There are plenty of new picture books about various monsters that have come out recently. Here are five new ones,that are sure to get kids in the mood for the spooky season. 

By Andrea Zuill 
New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2025. Picture Book. 

This is a book about how one snail named Bob turned into a vampire; however, according to the author all the snails in the world are named Bob—so really this book could be about ANY snail. Anyway, the snail turned into a vampire snail. And Bob the Vampire Snail had to figure out what to eat…since what he used to eat no longer works on a vampire diet. Give this picture book to elementary school kids who like a dose of silly with their spooky. 

By Nadia Ahmed 
Minneapolis, MN: Beaming Books, 2024. Picture Book. 

In this story Finn is a ghost who is afraid of literally everything. However, he is determined to face his fears, so that when Halloween rolls around he can get his favorite Halloween candy by trick-or-treating. With incremental exposure to various things that frighten Finn, he learns to overcome his fears and enjoy the Halloween season. Read this book to younger kids who like the idea of a spooky season, but are more than a little afraid of actually being in the thick of something scary. 

By Fiona Ross 
Wilton, CT: Tiger Tales, 2025. Picture Book. 

Squeak is a mouse who won a prize. An “icky, sticky, slimy prize.” And even though Grandma threw it out, Squeak decided to eat it. Then he turned into Hyde, a “monster mouse,” reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde the mouse destroys everything. Squeak the mouse is calm and loveable. The bright colors, the monster machines, and gloopy slime will fascinate readers who like a little mess with their horror. 

By Rachel Michelle Wilson 
New York: Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2025. Picture Book. 

The protagonist of this book has been told she must bring something to show and tell at school. The problem is that she doesn’t have anything worth bringing to show and tell—so she decides to catch a ghost. Readers watch as she finds a ghost, observes a ghost, and then finally catches a ghost. The text is clever. The illustrations are spot on, and the ghost will become a favorite. Read this with any wannabe paranormal investigators. 

Written by Casey Lyall 
Illustrated by Nici Gregory 
Toronto: Tundra, 2025. Picture Book. 

This is a clever tale about a vampire that bit a jam sandwich, then turned into a VAMPIRE jam sandwich. Now, no house is safe. All jam bottles must be hidden or boxed up and put outside where the vampire (aka a kid named Terrence with a jam sweet-tooth) can get it without terrorizing the home. Read this to elementary school students who can get the idea that even though Terrence is telling the tale about the vampire jam sandwich, that it just may be Terrence himself who is trying to get more jam to eat.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

By
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Factory

By
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Amazing Generation

By
The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World Written by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price  Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Informational. 226 pages.  In a kid-friendly adaptation of his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt teams up with Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone , to bring the power of good information directly to the hands of those that this issue affects most directly — kids on the cusp of getting their own smartphones. The book presents information about the drawbacks of having a smartphone and social media too soon in clear and easy-to-understand language, with eye-catching graphics and pop-outs. Throughout the book, quotes from real teens and young adults, called screen "rebels" by the authors, emphasize the points the authors are trying to make. Fictional characters are featured throughout in a graphic novel story, which further emphasizes the po...
Post a Comment
Read more