And Baby Makes Three..." Zombie In Love 2 + 1 by Kelly DiPucchio

MORTIMER AND MILDRED HAD A PROBLEM.
IT WASN'T A BIG PROBLEM.

IT WAS A LITTLE PROBLEM.

Zombies Mortimer and Mildred had fallen in love at first sight and now are living in newlywed bliss in their quaint vine-covered mausoleum near their friends in the graveyard.

But one twilight they find a surprise left on their doorstep--an old orange crate with a lively human baby inside, with a sign that says TAKE ME!

Being parents throws the undead couple for a loop. They name the baby Sunny, swaddle his bottom in some old mummy wrappings they have around the house, and set out on the rocky road of parenting.

But a baby is not exactly a good fit for creatures-of-the-night Mort and Millie.

Sonny is fussy at feeding time. He refuses a spoonful of bat pudding and actually spits out his pureed brains! He's not even green; he's a sickly color of pink. His teeth come in instead of falling out. And he never cries.

AND WORST OF ALL, HE WAS AWAKE ALL DAY AND SLEPT ALL NIGHT.

POOR MORTIMER AND MILDRED WERE DEAD TIRED.

In desperation, Mortimer and Mildred take Sonny to the pediatrician. Dr. Frank M. Stein, who pronounces Sonny in the pink of health.

That's good news, Mortimer and Mildred suppose, but it still doesn't give them a clue what to do to get some semi-eternal rest. They foresee endless weary days half awake, reading endless bedtime stories, playing pattycake and peek-a-BOO.

But at last there's a breakthrough!

SONNY FINALLY SLEPT THROUGH THE DAY!

Kelly DiPucchio's follow up to her best-selling Zombie in Love (see review here) takes her lovelorn hero and his smitten sweetheart into the trying days of parenthood. But with a few good day's sleep, Mortimer and Mildred stop falling apart (literally) and begin to enjoy the milestones in raising Sonny. When Sonny tries to climb out of his skull-bedecked crib and hits the floor with a crash and a wail, Mildred's first thought is to take a picture for the baby book.

"QUICK! GRAB THE CAMERA!

SONNY JUST TOOK HIS FIRST FALL!"

Illustrator Scott Campbell comes up with plenty of sight jokes in this second book, mostly executed in an appropriate palette of putrid greens. The Zombies' front door mat says R.I.P. and earthworms frolic in their graveyard lawn and house. Brains are everywhere, from baby pull toy to hobby horse head, and Mildred teaches patty-cake with Mortimer's two detached hands. In a wry double entendre Mildred tells Mortimer than Sonny has his nose (actually!), and with big gap-toothed grins (and one missing nose), all three pose together for a selfie, as Millie declares herself "the luckiest ghoul" ever.

One reviewer points out that DiPucchio and Campbell's books are perfect for both Halloween and Valentine's Day, and Publishers Weekly proclaims that for either occasion Zombie in Love 2 + 1 (Atheneum, 2015) is drop-dead funny and will "keep kids cackling."

Drop-Dead Romance: Zombie In Love: by Kelly DiPucchio

MORTIMER WAS LONELY.

CUPID'S BALL WAS JUST A WEEK AWAY, AND HE DIDN'T HAVE A SWEETHEART.

But Mortimer the Zombie is nobody's sweetheart now.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. Mortimer just can't seem to get the hang of romancing the lasses. He tries a nice red heart--freshly-extracted and still barely beating--but the girls just run away screaming. He tucks his favorite pet worms into the coffin-shaped box of chocolates he presents to one charming chick, but she flees the page in fear and trembling. His gift to the cute waitress at the diner--a diamond ring (still on its former owner's finger)--goes over like a lead-lined casket. His want ad in the lovelorn column of the classifieds--"TALL, DEAD, AND HANDSOME"--inexplicably goes without a reply.

But Mortimer is a swain not easily dissuaded. Dateless but undaunted, he decides to go stag to the ball. He heads off to shop for a new suit--at the nearby undertaker's parlor--and sets off for Cupid's Ball, full of unrequited desire and high hopes.

The joint is jumping, with cavorting couples crowding the dance floor. Mortimer takes up a hopeful stance near the refreshment table, hoping to spot a similarly stag damsel who's looking for a dance partner, but his best greenish smiles and wormy roses seem to discourage snacking and sends the lovelies loping for the nearest ladies' lounge. Soon nobody seems to be in the mood for punch and cookies.

The crowd thins, the band goes into their "goodnight, ladies" repertoire, the staff begins to sweep up, and it looks like Cupid's Ball is going to be a bust for poor lonely Mort.

But then a solitary girl straggles up to the punch bowl and gives Mortimer a hopeful smile--a gorgeously green smile. Never mind that she spills the punch, falls flat on her face, and breaks off a leg in the process! Mildew Mildred is obviously Mortimer's true love, and after they dance the night away (once she reattaches her foot), they go out for a romantic walk through the graveyard, (detached) hand in (detached) hand, and the two soul mates drive off in their very own limo:

HIS AND HEARSE!

In the perfect antidote to hearts and flowers fiction, Kelly Di Pucchio's drop-dead funny Zombie in Love (Atheneum, 2011) takes the zombie lit craze to a whole new level. Filled with Scott Campbell's wry sight gags and dreary palette which gives black humor a new lease on life, this spoof on the lonely-guy-meets-girl love story will evince a gaggle of gross-out giggles, punctuated with "eeeuuuwwws" and "yucks," from kids in the primary grades who find the whole love thing a bit "grossening" anyway. A great little storytime treat with some heart-y har-hars for the pre-Valentine season.

Back to School: Dog Days of School by Kelly DiPucchio

CHARLIE WAS TIRED OF GOING TO SCHOOL.

"YOU'RE LUCKY YOU DON'T HAVE GO TO SCHOOL!" CHARLIE TOLD NORMAN.

Charlie dreads the sound of the alarm clock's ringing on Monday morning, while his dog Norman gets to roll over and sleep as long as he pleases. Charlie look out his window and whispers a wish to the first star he sees.

I WISH I WAS A DOG.

In Kelly DiPucchio's funny wish-fulfillment fantasy, Charlie and Norman change places while keeping their own bodies. On Monday Norman jumps out of bed, brushes his teeth, straps on his backpack, and heads off to make the bus while Charlie curls back up in Norman's bed and snores on into the morning. Ahhh!

At school as Charlie, Norman has mixed success with the curriculum. The other kids give him a curious look as he takes Charlie's seat and begins to practice his letters along with them. At art time he carefully sculpts a clay fireplug. At music time he shakes a maraca in the rhythm section, and at storytime, he suffers through boring kitty stories. The other kids don't care for his way of making soccer passes with his mouth, and his teacher gives him timeout for chewing his pencil (and her shoes)!

Meanwhile, Charlie is finding the dog's life not everything it's cracked up to be either. It's boring home alone all day. He eats nothing but dull, dry dog chow and drinks from the toilet, and a trip to the groomer's for a toenail trim, clip, and blow dry makes a morning shower look like fun. And then when he does a little digging in the flowers, he gets himself locked in the laundry room and finds himself, literally, in the dog house, chilling out all night in the chilly backyard. Charlie is ready to return to his old life, but his parent's can't read his notes and don't understand when he woofs his plea.

"Be careful what you wish for" is the popular time-honored premise of Kelly DiPucchio's latest, Dog Days of School (Hyperion Press, 2014). Author DiPucchio and artist Brian Biggs team up to tell this tale, DiPucchio in a deadpan narrative description of events and Biggs using his comic illustrations of Charlie trying to drink from the toilet or fit into the doghouse to point up the obvious humor of this job swap. Kids will sympathize with Charlie's desire to skip school but laugh at his efforts to fit in as a dog, perhaps getting a new perspective on why boys go to school and dogs, well, go outside.

Kelly DiPucchio is the popular author of the best-selling Grace for President, as well as Zombie in Love, Crafty Chloe, and her recent Gaston, another dog identity switcheroo tale.

DING! Robot in Love by T. L. McBeth

It was a day like any other.

Then I saw her!

I had never seen anything so beautiful.. So... shiny!

No sooner do his optical sensors fire than his servos are in swivel and his central processor is sizzling!! He is smitten.

Robot is in love!

He moves closer, thinking to activate vocalization, but his circuit board is in total system overload.

DING!

Our connection was electric!

The next day Robot tries again. Nattily attired in spiffy suit and red bow tie, carrying a bouquet, he returns to their meeting place, determined to communicate to her how he feels.

She was gone!

Then he sees her picture in the store window--and her name!

TOAST-O-MATIC!

We ran away together.

And it's true love and a dual power supply forever in T.L. McBeth's toasty warm love story Robot in Love (Henry Holt and Company, 2018). Artist McBeth's simple artwork depicts his love-stricken suitor dandily dressed, in simple black and white drawings accented with soft reds, right down to the Valentine hearts in his visual orbits. For youngsters who prefer their love stories on the silly side, this is a heart-warming Valentine Day's story which will not fail to engage the giggle gears in young readers in a sweet tale of cyborg romance.

For more offbeat Valentine fare, pair this one with Kelly DiPucchio's hilarious Zombie in Love (see review here).

Wicked Weird: My Rotten Friend by Stephanie J. Blake

SHE'S MY BEST FRIEND.

BUT I WON'T LIE.

PENELOPE SMELLS

LIKE SOMETHING DIED.

And while everyone else in the class is growing, Penelope seems to be, er, losing it.

Teeth, well, sure. Everyone in class loses one now and then. But Penelope is... kinda running low on them. That doesn't stop her from biting now and again, though. And one day she turned up missing ... (I hate to say it) an eyeball. Flies begin to circle her head.

Penelope's a real gross-out girl. She's acting strange, too.

SHE SAID SHE'S IN AN EATING MOOD.

BUT SHE DIDN'T WANT TO SHARE MY FOOD.

And when Penelope bites a coach, she has to leave school.

I HAVE TO TAKE MY BEST FRIEND HOME.

I RIDE MY BIKE. SHE JUST SHUFFLES ALONG.

Birds fall out of the trees and cats run away shrieking, as Penelope drops a few body parts along the sidewalk.

Some friendships have their ups and downs, and when your best friend's interests are centered on a "zombie buffet," the relationship seems doomed, in Stephanie J. Blake's My Rotten Friend (Albert Whitman and Company, 2015). Illustrator Mariano Epelbaum adds to the satire, setting the story in a cartoon-style idyllic, picket-fenced town, while author Blake has freaky fun spoofing all the usual zombie tropes in a story that will appeal to kids bored with friendly ghosties and winsome witches but with a stomach for the undead genre and like their Halloween tales with a ghastly tongue-in-cheek twist.

For funny zombie stories that offer a kitchy heartwarming twist, try Kelly DiPucchio's Zombie in Love and Zombie in Love 2 + 1 (see reviews here)