The Monsterator

A true, monstrous success!

Graves (Chicken Big) returns with an offering that's part story, part activity book. It opens with a painting of Master Edgar Dreadbury, a boy in a red blazer who glowers from an oversize wing chair as he weighs and rejects the usual Halloween costume possibilities ("A zombie? A clown? A ventriloquist's dummy?/ He frowned and complained, They're all equally crummy"). In a deserted storefront, Edgar finds the Monsterator, a vending machine with a circus-tent top and a filigreed, steampunk-style exterior. A dime in the slot and the sizzling, Frankensteinian monsteration begins: "When the machine finally quit, / Edgar crashed through the door./ He banged on his chest with his fists and roared." With his new horns, fangs, and dragon tail, Edgar can do some world-class scaring. The final pages consist of split monster spreads that let readers "monsterate" Edgar by mixing parts from fly, robot, skeleton, and other creatures. Despite the gray fog that hovers over everything, Graves's acrylic paintings are funnier than they are scary, full of guaranteed child-pleasers like Edgar chowing down on spaghetti and meatballs out of a dog dish. Ages 7-10. (Aug.)

In this fiendishly fun novelty book, Master Edgar Dreadbury is suitably bored by typical Halloween attire and chooses to bypass his usual costume store for The Monster Shop, which he had not previously noticed. There, he finds a contraption called the "MONSTERATOR," and with a nonchalant "Oh, why not," the child drops his dime into the old fashioned-looking machine and is suddenly transformed into a monster. With his fearsome roar, sharp fangs, pointy horns, and reptilian feet, Edgar joyfully scares everyone in his path. "He horrified the tall./He terrified the small./Edgar Dreadbury frightened them all." It's all well and good on Halloween night, but when Edgar grows tired of being a monster, he discovers that the shop has disappeared and he is destined to remain one forever. The simple plot is heightened by a humorous rhyming text (including many monsterly sound effects) and large, kid-friendly, digitally enhanced acrylic illustrations that are more funny than creepy. But the true pleasure and surprise of this book are the final pages that serve as a flip toy, allowing youngsters to "monsterate" Edgar themselves by selecting from several layers of monstrous heads, faces, bodies, and feet. Sturdy pages will survive dozens of flips and give kids lots of incentive to create their own Halloween costume mash-ups. Purchase multiples for lots of horrific holiday fun!—Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library