I am not lazy! Ok I'm lazy, but I'm not being lazy about this, I swear! I have already reviewed Kevin Bolger's very funny book Zombiekins, actually I reviewed the audio, you can read that review on Amazon eventually or in SLJ right now, and I do encourage you to do so - I used alliteration and everything! So this is my seven-year-old's review. But just because I've done this with two posts in a row doesn't mean that I've given up on writing my own reviews.
It's just - it's Halloween! Time for flesh-eating zombie stuffies to limp menacingly out from beneath your bed and into your dreams! Let Zhou tell you all about it:
Your Neighborhood Librarian: Hey Zhou. You remember Zombiekins.
Zhou: Uh yeah. We listened to it in the car.
YNL: Did you like it?
Z: Yeah! But the reason I liked it a lot mostly was that the guy who reads it [veteran audiobook narrator Johnny Heller, here at the absolute tippy-top of his form] does such a good job on the "Stump... skritch..." sound when Zombiekins walks. And I think that the widow named Imavitch, I mean like her name is "I'm a witch" - she has to be a witch!
Mao, interjecting from the other room: And Mr. Baldengrumpy?
Z: Baldengrumpy was a good name for him. In every part of the book he's grumpy and he has too much rules.
YNL: But wait... the "Stump skritch" gave you a nightmare!
Z: Because he did it so good!
YNL: and that doesn't bother you now?
Z: No, because it's so long ago that I can just forget how scary it was.
(Only scary for the hamster, here.)
YNL: Were there any other characters in it that you liked?
Z: I liked Stanley's best friend, what was her name?
YNL: Miranda.
Z: I liked that she was kinda more smart, and she tries out every idea until something works. Like for example when she tried out throwing the candy at the zombies.
YNL: Don't put your shoes on the chair. Do you think it was more funny or more scary?
Z: 50/50. Half funny, half scary, and they squeezed it together to make Zombiekins. And one of the funny parts that I like the most is when Miranda is telling Stanley, "just because she has a broomstick tied up to her bike rack and she can appear where ever a black cat is... and a bunch of other things... doesn't make her a witch." And she's obviously a witch!
Just right for Halloween - but don't play it too close to bedtime!
PS: It is from Kevin Bolger's author bio that I learned that Barthelme wrote a children's book, and I am now obsessed with chasing that thing down. I literally can't imagine what it must be like. Next you'll tell me that Paul Auster
also publishes under the name Dav Pilkey
. Anarchy! Cats dressed as dogs! Halloween!
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