Spooky Spoof! Mother Ghost by Rachel Kolar

WEE WILLIE WEREWOLF RUNS THROUGH THE TOWN
AND WITH A HOWL HE CRIES,
"ARE ALL THE MONSTERS IN THEIR BEDS?
THE SUN'S ABOUT TO RISE!"

Poor Mother Goose! Her venerable rhymes and tales are so familiar, making them fair game for parody, and Rachel Kolar's enticing Mother Ghost: Nursery Rhymes for Little Monsters (Sleeping Bear Press, 2018) has a holiday blast spoofing those famous verses with a Halloween twist.

Artist Roland Garrigue's rococo style and black and purple palette make the most of the Halloween tropes--bare, leafless trees provide perches for ghosties, and a zombie-esque Mary Quite Contrary sits on a tombstone eating worms--and that spider for dessert.

Old Mother Hubbard goes to her cupboard for a dog bone, only to have a skeleton claim it for one of his own. A spooky bat is the stand-in for the homey Mrs. Goose, and instead of a little lamb, her Mary has a pet ghost, white as a cloud, who follows her everywhere wearing his shroud. And as for that other nursery rhyme Mary....

MARY, MARY, TALL AND SCARY,
HOW DOES YOUR GRAVEYARD GROW?
WITH BURIED BONES AND CARVED GRAY STONES,
AND LITTLE GHOSTS ALL IN A ROW!

All of Kolar's nursery characters are decked out as familiar Halloween characters as the diddle-diddle cat fiddles for a ghoul, while Little Boy Drac blows his horn in this seasonal spoof of an old favorite collection that most kids will find rhyming, irresistible chuckle-bait. A first choice for children's holiday library collections and a sure-fire funny read-aloud.

Say Goodnight, Albert: Goodnight, Lab (A Scientific Parody) by Chris Ferrie

IN THE GREAT GREEN LAB,
THERE WAS A LASER
AND A LAB NOTEBOOK

AND A PICTURE OF EINSTEIN
WITH A STERN LOOK.

No picture book has been more beloved--and more parodied--than Margaret Wise Brown's perennial best-seller, Goodnight Moon, with its familiar green cover and irregular verse form that has chronicled the steps in bedtime preparation and persuasion for generations of tykes. Indeed, the cover layout is so iconic that the subtitle A Scientific Parody is hardly necessary on Chris Ferrie's latest tot science title, Goodnight Lab: A Scientific Parody (Baby University) (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky Books, 2017).

Chris Ferrie, a writer devoted to introducing the vocabulary and concepts of science to the nursery school set, faithfully parallels the narration of Margaret Wise Brown's bedtime story. With the dour image of Albert Einstein looking down from the wall, we bid goodnight to both the thermometer and the spectronomer and selected scientific apparatus and paraphernalia and even the clutter of labwork, and Ferrie even includes that bugaboo of academics everywhere:

GOODNIGHT, RUBBISH.

GOODNIGHT, GRUMPY OLD PROFESSOR
SHOUTING "PUBLISH!"

In his several Baby University board books, such as his amazingly top-selling Quantum Physics for Babies (Baby University), Ferrie avoids the chicken-and-egg question by introducing scientific vocabulary and complex concepts to the very young simultaneously, believing that naming big ideas goes right along with early understanding of scientific principles.

In this clever parody, however, author-illustrator Ferrie offers no theories, just a comic take-off on an old bedtime standby, tossing in items such as lab coats, the ubiquitous sticky notes, lab notebooks, and ammeters and voltmeters along the way. This little board book also offers some chuckles for grownups, while simultaneously stimulating more questions than yawns--which was likely the author's plan all along.

For youngsters who love wordplay as well as lab paraphernalia, pair this one with Michael Rex's killer-diller knockoff, Goodnight Goon: a Petrifying Parody, (read review here) Rex's equally punny Runaway Mummy: a Petrifying Parody, or Michael Teitelbaum's spoof of Eric Carle's classic caterpillar tale, The Very Hungry Zombie: A Parody.

Monster Merriment: Frankenstein and the Fright before Christmas by Ludwurst Bemonster

IT WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND POOR MISS DEVEL
WAS HASSLED AND HARRIED AND NOT FEELING WELL.
THE MONSTERS' BED MANNERS HAD TAKEN THEIR TOLL.
THEY'D LOST THEIR HEADS! THEY WERE OUT OF CONTROL.

SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!

Miss Devel rises from her gurney, dons her lab coat and goggles, and scurries downstairs where the little monsters are sporting various household appliances--laptops, toasters, vintage Victrolas--where their heads should be. She does her best to sort out the mixup, with marginal success. But no sooner does she get the small monsters to pull out their teeth, wet their beds, and settle down, something else is not quite right.

FOR OFF IN THE DISTANCE SHE HEARD SUCH A CLATTER
SHE SPRANG FROM HER SLEEP TO SEE WHAT WAS THE MATTER!

Little Frankenstein crashes through the castle door with a fir tree fresh from the graveyard decorated with bats and bones, just as Miss Devel hears a sound from the rooftop:

ON WHOZIT, ON WHATZIT, ON ALL OF YOU OTHERS!

Santa, his sleigh, and his full pack crash through the rickety roof, and among the creepy contents of his sack are replacement heads for all the little monsters. After having a giggly good time trying on each other's heads, the monsters finally get it right, and as a reward Santa offers them all a sleepover at the North Pole, while Miss Devel gladly takes the option of a night off and returns to her gurney for a monster-free GOODNIGHT!

In their Frankenstein's Fright Before Christmas (Feiwel and Friends Fiends, 2014), Rick Walton and Nathan Hale morph together to take on the tropes of two classics, Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline and Clement Clarke Moore's The Night Before Christmas in a monster mash that would tickle even the Grinch's funny bone. Using Bemelman's familiar verse form and illustrative style with a haunted castle setting for St. Nick's visit, the two create a Christmas spoof that brings down the house (almost). Parodying two classics of kid lit simultaneously is no small feat, but as Ludworst Bemonster, this duo carries off this rather sophisticated parody with elan, frightful fun, and monstrous mirth. Savvy young readers will recognize what Walton and Hale are up to here and find this one a happy seasonal stocking stuffer.

Walton's and Hale's first collaboration was Frankenstein (read my 2012 review here.)

Once Upon a Bedtime Weary.... Edgar Gets Ready for Bed by Jennifer Adams.

"Once upon a midnight dreary...." a mother Raven was growing weary with her son, Edgar, doubtless named for that moody master of dark literature, Edgar Allan Poe. She sighs as she tries to move him along toward bedtime.

But, not surprisingly, Little Edgar has a negative side.

EDGAR! FINISH YOUR VEGETABLES!" SAYS BIG RAVEN.

"NEVERMORE!"

Big Raven orders Edgar to stop chasing his sister. She commands him to tidy up his room. Edgar has one word for it all.

"NEVERMORE!"

Big Raven orders Edgar to take a bath, but testing the water with one toe, Edgar envisions sharks cruising just below the surface.

"NEVERMORE!!"

Mama Raven drags the contrary Edgar through tooth brushing, pajama-ing, and leaving his sister alone! She asks him, firmly, to sit down while she gets everything in order, but Edgar refuses to be still... until Mama Raven, with a sigh, comes up with a different suggestion:

"COME ON, DEAR, AND I'LL READ YOU A STORY."

She begins reading from little Edgar's favorite book: "Once upon a midnight dreary...."

Wee Edgar settles down beside Mama, but then, with a worried baby frown, he has to ask...

 "DO YOU STILL LOVE ME?"

And there's only one thing that Mama Raven can say, in Jennifer Adams' Edgar Gets Ready for Bed: A BabyLit®First Steps Picture Book (BabyLit First Steps Books) (Gibbs Press, 2014). Mama Ravens love their little ones evermore, and as cute as this diminutive naysayer is, everyone will love little Edgar, terrible two though he may be. Preschoolers may not have a clue about Edgar Allan Poe's dreary, weary, sorta scary poem, but they will thoroughly understand this little raven's reluctance to say goodnight. Illustrator Bob Stucki provides quaint nineteenth-century ambiance, with an ornate doorway with its black raven door knocker, period furniture, and clawfoot bathtub, and especially the carved raven over Edgar's bedroom doorway, which will add to the fun for slightly older youngsters and parents who loved (or suffered through) Poe's poem, too.

Hang High the Holly: A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas by Philip Yates

'TWAS ON THE EVE OF YULETIDE

WHERE A SHIP SAILED THROUGH THE NIGHT.
ACROSS THE DARK AND BRINY DEEP
BENEATH THE STARS SO BRIGHT.

"AHOY, ME MATES!" THE CAP'N ROARED.
"'TIS TIME TO PLUNDER WRECKS--
EXCEPT FER YE, ME CABIN BOY--
YE'LL STAY AND SWAB THE DECKS."

The long-suffering cabin boy of the pirate ship Black Sark can't seem to catch a Christmas break. It's almost Yuletide, time for jolly ol' Sir Peggedy's annual visit, and all Cap'n has to say is "ARRGH! HUMBUG!"

But when our favorite swabby awakes the next morning, there's a surprise that brings a strangely familiar song to his lips, for on deck he finds

A PARROT IN A PALM TREE!

And the gifting continues for the next eleven days. Each day amazing items appear--two cutlasses, three black cats, four cacklin' hens, five chests of gold. There are Jolly Rogers, dolphins swimmin', mermaids singin', sloops a-sailin', swallows a-swoopin', and finally twelve pirates cheerin'! The piratical crew confesses that they have provided all the items in their song as their YARRful Yule gifts. And anchors aweigh, but there's jolly ol' Sir Peggedy hisself landin' on deck fer the big celebration.

Avast, all ye yulelubbers! Even grizzled marauders love to make merry, and Philip Yate's newest, A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas (Sterling) 2012), counts the days down to Christmas in briny, brawny buccaneer style. With its vivid, swirling illustrations by Sebastian Serra and its "Pirate Glossary," appended, all those landlubbin' mateys and hearties can weigh anchor and sail off with a new buccaneer carol for the holiday season. A perfect script for a primary-grade holiday production, this parody of the old song also pairs well with Yates' best-selling A Pirate's Night Before Christmas. (See my review here.)

Princess Pen-Pals: Dear Cinderella by Marian Moore and Mary Jane Kensington

Dear Cinderella,

I am so happy we are going to be pen pals. I live in a great big castle with my mean step-mother. Even though I am a princess, she make me work all the time.

I wish I lived in some faraway place where dreams come true.

SIGH. It's not easy being a fairy tale princess. Snow and Cindy have their mean step-mothers in common, and as their letters fly back and forth, the two soon become BFFs. Both counsel the other to keep a positive outlook, smile through their tears, and keep singing as they do their step-mothers' dirty work.

"Singing and dancing when you are scrubbing, washing, and cleaning make the chores seem like fun,” writes Cinderella helpfully.

“I have been singing and dancing ever since I read your letter,” Snow White gushes.

If this were a movie musical, Cindy and Snow would launch into a split-screen duet dance version of "Someday My Prince Will Come" at this point, with chirping bluebirds fluttering all 'round.

The two would-be princess brides share their dreams of a Prince Charming who will take them away from all of these chores, and confide their fears that their step-mothers have more nefarious events than merely scrubbing and sweeping planned for them. When the unwary Snow White confides in a missive that she is so looking forward to a day far away from her tasks, picnicking in the forest with the jovial huntsman, readers will, of course, know what's up, and when later at the Seven Dwarfs' cottage an old apple seller comes to the door, the fairy tale cognoscenti will be crying "No, Snow! Don't eat that apple!!" Likewise, when Cindy gets left behind, still toiling on her homemade gown on the night of the ball, savvy readers will know that she'll soon be dancing the light fantastic in her glass slippers with a certain prince.

Although some reviewers have tagged this fluffy princess tale as "vapid," it can just as easily be read as a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the whole Disneyesque take on the classics. Older (third, fourth, or fifth graders, say) who may have read the original grim Grimm tales, will chuckle at this bubbly parody, and younger readers will enjoy being in the know when famous elements of the plot are foreshadowed in the girls' perky epistles.

Taken as an intermediate step between the literary license of Disney films and the grim realities of cut-off toes and carved-out hearts of the original tales, this story has its niche. Considered as part of the growing "fractured fairy tale genre," Marian Moore and MaryJane Kensington's light-hearted new Dear Cinderella (Orchard Books, 2012) can be good fun for fans of the two venerable fairy tale princesses who keep smiling on the way to their happy-ever-after.

For a preview look, the book's trailer is here.