Oh, No, Green Glow! Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds

Jasper Rabbit needed new underwear.

There's no alternative for undies, so Mom and Jasper are off to the Underwear Store. Mom grabs the last three packs of Plain White, thinking this trip is going to blissfully, er, brief.

But then Jasper sees them.

CREEPY UNDERWEAR.

So creepy! They were glorious!

In Day-Glo Green, with a Frankenstein face glowering on the front, they are perfect! Mom thinks they're too creepy for her bunny, but Jasper insists.

I'm not a little bunny any more! I'm a big rabbit!

Jasper can't wait to wear the creepy skivvies. He wears them to bed. But despite repetition of his "big bunny" mantra, the green and ghoulish glow of his lower half creeps Jasper out. Even piling a pillow over his face can't keep the creepy green glow out of his eyes.

Jasper skins out of the spooky pants and stuffs them into the bottom of the laundry hamper, but the glow in his room remains just as greenish and ghoulish as before. Finally Jasper falls into a fretful sleep, but when he wakes up, he finds that he is wearing the creepy briefs again. Is there a curse on his keister?

Jasper tries everything to rid himself of the dreadful drawers. He cuts them up into glowing green bits. But no matter where he stashes them, they return, back on his tushie, still ghoulishly green and glowing. He even mails them to China, only to receive them back in record time, with souvenirs--a pair of chopsticks and a toy panda! Finally Jasper slogs out at midnight with a shovel to bury the creepy underwear deep in a hole on the top of the distant Crookhanger Hill.

At last he drags himself into bed, switches off his bedside light, and lies down in the dark room with a satisfied smile. It's total darkness at last! Only....

It was REALLY DARK in there!

Jasper finds that even for a big rabbit, there can be too much of a good thing, and now there's way too much darkness in his bedroom. Will the Creepy Underwear have a return booking on his bottom?

There's a tiny bit of horror and and a lot of humor in Aaron Reynolds' Creepy Pair of Underwear! (Simon and Schuster, 2017), and a plenty of underpants-spurred hilarity is sure to ensue when young readers hear or read this spookypants tale.

Artist Peter Brown, who earned a Caldecott Honor Award for his collaboration with Aaron Reynolds in Creepy Carrots! (see review here), outdoes himself in this one. His uniformly grayscale illustrations, lighted only by the green glow of the seemingly possessed underpants, sets the stage well, alternating full-page illustrations with panels that build suspense. His Underwear Store is everything it should be--row after row of square tables with neat stacks of briefs, and when Jasper finally settles down to sleep and turns off his light, the next page turn reveals a double-page spread of nothing but... flat black. Brown also adds plenty of sight gags, changing the monster face on the briefs slightly, even down to the one back from China, matching the changing looks on poor Jasper's face. This new undie tale from Reynolds and Brown is doubtless destined to be the top hit of this year's spooky season.

The Briefing: Monster's New Undies by Samantha Berger

OF ALL THE DAYS I DREAD,
NOT ONE CAN COMPARE
TO THE DAY WE SHOP
FOR NEW UNDERWEAR.

Little Monster is in a state of dis-dress. His old whities are way too tightie. His waistbands have lost their snap. But they feel so familiar.

A SWEET WORK OF ART...
OH, NO! THEY JUST FELL APART.

The breeze on his backside reminds Monster just what boxers and briefs are for. To be fair, a fig leaf doesn't half cover the situation.

Monster is out of options. Mom is adamant. He must cover his keister, park his posterior, hide his heinie. There's nothing for it but a trip to UNDIE WORLD.

It's traumatic. How can Little Monster tuck his tush in any of those dreadful drawers on display?

Some are way long, some are cut short. One style looks like a diaper. One is more like a skort. And they all have silly designs printed all over them--

NO ICE CREAM CONES!
NO TINY WHALES!
NO RAINBOW HEARTS!
NO SAILBOAT SAILS!

Surrounded by a pile of rejected underthings, Monster despairs of ever finding the right fit for his fanny. But just then, he spots a sight that gladdens his glutes!

THESE ARE THE ONES!
IT'S LIKE THEY'RE MADE
JUST FOR FOR MY BUNS!

With his tushie in love, Monster's mom gives a sigh of relief and the weary clerk rings up 18 perfect pairs of underwears, in noted comic author Samantha Berger's just published Monster's New Undies (Orchard Books, 2017).

It's no undercover secret that the very mention of underwear sets off twitters among Berger's target audience pf tots to 'tweeners and her latest will truly supply knicker snickers and hoots and howls of laughter at the pursuit of the perfect underpants. Tad Carpenter supplies choice illustrations of his determined mom, a lovable if persnickety little green Monster who is particular about what dresses his derriere, and some truly tacky tightie whities that would turn any youngster into a hard sell. Artist Carpenter fittingly brings it all down to the final page, with a pair of briefs inscribed THE END.

And for more boffo bootie bait, share this one with any of Claire Freedman's and Ben Cort's The Underpants Books, beginning with Aliens Love Underpants: Deluxe Edition (Read reviews here.)