The Scary Book, is effective, fabulous, silly-scary for 4 and up

The Scary Book is a delightfully, age-appropriate scary-silly book with pop-up elements. As an adult, I loved reading this. If my kids were young enough to enjoy the fact that I was reading a book to them, they’d love this. What’s surprising about The Scary Book is the creatures really do have an edge, despite all of its silliness. All but one of the animals has a mouth that’s printed on folded cardboard paper that folds out. This gives the illusion that the animal’s mouths are much bigger than they actually are, much like those folded pages in the back of Mad Magazine do.  

The curveball in The Scary Book is what’s inside the folded up elements. Once you unfold the heads they extend about four more inches exposing what’s in their mouths or throats. In some cases, it’s green ooze dripping down their fangs as their throats are being opened up the three tongues in the back. The ghost has a flesh-colored face under its sheet-which then exposes a torso, complete with ribs and backbone. The tiny one opens up to one that’s four times as big as it was and is about it eat an octopus. Now, picture all of the above with an overall silly and humorous tone.

Written down these things seem really scary and not the sort of thing that you’d imagine would be appropriate in a board book. My descriptions are accurate, but the illustrations are something that exists inside the world of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The images in The Scary Book are not from that film. However, they have the same cartoonish vibe that lets kids know that it’s OK to have ‘scary’ content that’s not wimpy or apologetic. This is silly-scary, but it still has an edge.

I can’t help but feel like an 80’s movie bully when I wrote that last line. Perhaps a better way to phrase that is The Scary Book is completely appropriate for children age and up. The pictures are more fun and surreal then they are legitimately scary. It’s just that one rarely sees a book like this, so it might be unexpected to open it and see a fish being strangled by an octopus intestine. There I go again, writing down the description when it’s obvious that the actual illustration is lighter, playful and something kids are really thinking.

My child is going to be an ax murderer if they see this book, aren’t they? Aghhhh, would you just stop? The book is called The Scary Book and is a childhood, graphic designer’s best friend. Granted, those kids will love the book for its layout. The goth pre-school kids will love it for the monsters that look like they should be listening to Bauhaus. The elementary-aged boys will enjoy the book because it shows monsters in the way that they are thinking. That, plus some of the girls who they secretly like will pretend to be grossed out by the monsters in the book, but they’ll actually like it also.

The fold-out elements are thicker than average paper, but not as thick as the paper it’s printed on. Because of that, those younger readers shouldn’t be left alone with the book unless you want those flaps to be separated from the book post-haste. Those first-grade readers and up will be able to open the folds without any worry of them ripping them from the book.

The Scary Book is by Dedieu and on Prestel Junior. It’s intended for pre-K kids all the way through elementary school and up.

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