I Want to Be in a Scary Story by Sean Taylor. Illustrated by Jean Jullien. Candlewick Press, 2017

Ages 3-7

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 ready for something quite that scary. The scene changes 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 toward 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 wide-eyed, his purple-inked dialogue matching his color, and the unseen narrator, whose words are shown in black, is always easy to follow. So, too, are Little Monster’s emotions. 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. ©2018 Cooperative Children’s Book Center