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juushikaWe'll be here for years if I do these one by one; I'm just too behind on crossposting reviews. These are all spooky picture books. I've been grabbing from library reading lists and boldly off of the "imagine" section of the local shelves with mixed success.
Title: There’s a Ghost in This House
Author: Oliver Jeffers
Published: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2021
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 45
Total Page Count: 538,925
Text Number: 1978
Read Because: more spooky picture books, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A little girl explores an old house for ghosts, which the reader finds by turning over vellum pages. This is more gimmick than narrative, which makes it slight but extremely aesthetically pleasing, from the oversized layout to the mixed media of black and white found photos and cute doodles. It's a familiar, effective take on spooky subject matter in children's books: knowing more than the protagonist turns scary things playful, without compromising the atmosphere. Really fun!
(This one was a favorite of the batch, only my library coffee smelled so strongly of perfume/air fresher/whatever; smell it from across the couch-levels of stink. Not the ideal circumstances and not conducive to revisiting favorite panels.)
Title: Beanie the Bansheenie
Author: Eoin Colfer
Illustrator: Steve McCarthy
Published: Candlewick Press, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 538,990
Text Number: 1979
Read Because: more!, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A baby banshee who doesn't know when her person will die studies her to try to find out. I don't pick up a book about a banshees so that I can read about the least possible banshee-like banshee. I'm fine with defanging scary things in a kidlit! There are plenty of effective and productive ways to do it. But this almost feels like false advertising; it's its own mythology and heartfelt narrative. Luckily, the art is phenomenal, with one of the best color palettes I've seen in a picture book; it elevates an inoffensive but fairly forgettable work.
Title: Into the Goblin Market
Author: Vikki VanSickle
Illustrator: Jensine Eckwall
Published: Tundra Books, 2024
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 539,040
Text Number: 1980
Read Because: more!, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A bookish sister rescues her adventurous sister who has braved the goblin market. This is one of the weirder choices for adaptation into a children's book, and subsequently not a successful one. The black, white, and red artwork is stark and finely detailed and brings much-needed wonder and threat; the rhyming text is tolerable at best; but the original poem is what it is, so to excise the sensual, queer elements leaves a hole that cannot be filled by fairytale references; the beauty and depth just isn't there, even though I like the twist. I sympathize, I'm inspired by the poem, too!, but this ain't it.
(Go read Sendak's Outside Over There instead.)
Title: There’s a Ghost in This House
Author: Oliver Jeffers
Published: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2021
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 45
Total Page Count: 538,925
Text Number: 1978
Read Because: more spooky picture books, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A little girl explores an old house for ghosts, which the reader finds by turning over vellum pages. This is more gimmick than narrative, which makes it slight but extremely aesthetically pleasing, from the oversized layout to the mixed media of black and white found photos and cute doodles. It's a familiar, effective take on spooky subject matter in children's books: knowing more than the protagonist turns scary things playful, without compromising the atmosphere. Really fun!
(This one was a favorite of the batch, only my library coffee smelled so strongly of perfume/air fresher/whatever; smell it from across the couch-levels of stink. Not the ideal circumstances and not conducive to revisiting favorite panels.)
Title: Beanie the Bansheenie
Author: Eoin Colfer
Illustrator: Steve McCarthy
Published: Candlewick Press, 2024
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 538,990
Text Number: 1979
Read Because: more!, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A baby banshee who doesn't know when her person will die studies her to try to find out. I don't pick up a book about a banshees so that I can read about the least possible banshee-like banshee. I'm fine with defanging scary things in a kidlit! There are plenty of effective and productive ways to do it. But this almost feels like false advertising; it's its own mythology and heartfelt narrative. Luckily, the art is phenomenal, with one of the best color palettes I've seen in a picture book; it elevates an inoffensive but fairly forgettable work.
Title: Into the Goblin Market
Author: Vikki VanSickle
Illustrator: Jensine Eckwall
Published: Tundra Books, 2024
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 539,040
Text Number: 1980
Read Because: more!, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A bookish sister rescues her adventurous sister who has braved the goblin market. This is one of the weirder choices for adaptation into a children's book, and subsequently not a successful one. The black, white, and red artwork is stark and finely detailed and brings much-needed wonder and threat; the rhyming text is tolerable at best; but the original poem is what it is, so to excise the sensual, queer elements leaves a hole that cannot be filled by fairytale references; the beauty and depth just isn't there, even though I like the twist. I sympathize, I'm inspired by the poem, too!, but this ain't it.
(Go read Sendak's Outside Over There instead.)
