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I Want to Be in a Scary Story

Little Monster is ready to be in a scary story. The narrator begins with a dark and scary forest. “Oh my golly gosh!” says Little Monster, not quite ready for something quite that scary. The narrator changes the scene to a spooky house. “Oh my goodness me! … Oh yikes and crikes!” Finally Little Monster admits it would be better to do the scaring. Anticipation builds as Little Monster walks towards a room to scare whoever is inside … “can we maybe change this book so it’s a FUNNY story?” The back-and-forth dialogue between Little Monster, who is small and purple and wide-eyed and whose dialogue is in purple, and the unseen narrator, whose words are shown in black, is always easy to follow. So, too, are Little Monster’s emotions: sometimes what you think you want changes once you actually get it. The gentle tension shifts to the comically absurd and then back again in this begs-to-be-read-aloud picture book when Little Monster suddenly disappears and the narrator becomes increasingly worried. “Boo!” Digitally colored ink illustrations show Little Monster against white pages when talking with the narrator, and in full-color, bold, slightly comical (and maybe a teensy bit scary) scenes when part of the various stories being told. ©2017 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Illustrated by Jean Jullien

CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 3-7
Age Range: Babies/Toddlers (birth – 3) PreK-Early Elementary (Ages 4-7)
Format: Picture book
Subjects: Fear Humor Scary Stories Suspense

Publisher: Candlewick
Publish Year: 2017
Pages: 48
ISBN: 9780763689537

CCBC Location: Picture Book, Taylor

I Want to Be in a Scary Story