Moldilocks and the Three Scares

September 2, 2019
The three Scares—Papa resembles Frankenstein’s monster, Mama is a mummy/Bride of Frankenstein hybrid, and Baby is a wee vampire—live in a haunted house “with room enough for four,” writes Marie. Despite having a ghost dog and a bell tower full of bats, they each yearn for a missing someone. Enter green-skinned Moldilocks, who, drawn by a scent that “smelled like home, something she hadn’t enjoyed in a long, long time,” lumbers into the momentarily vacated Scare house and wreaks the same havoc as her fairy tale counterpart (Baby’s chair, made of delicate bones, is reduced to dust). Instead of exhibiting fury, the family that discovers her welcomes her with open arms: “HOW DARE YOU... eat without us!” a joyful Papa cries. “I’ve always wanted another mouth to feed.” It’s a horror spoof with a big heart: Lorenzo’s acrylic and colored pencil cartooning offers a warm glow, and readers will cheer for this undead family that finally feels complete. Ages 4–8.

September 9, 2019

K-Gr 3-This spooky retelling of a familiar fairy tale introduces readers to the Scares, a family of three in a house built for four. Papa Scare is a Frankenstein's monster, Mama Scare is a mummy, and Baby Scare is a wee vampire. When they go out to walk Plasma, their ghost dog, a zombie named Moldilocks sneaks into their house, eats their Alpha-Bat Soup, sits in an electric chair, and eventually falls asleep under Baby Scare's vampire-bat quilt. Marie's text hews closely to the structure of the classic tale in a way that will either feel comfortably familiar or unoriginal and redundant, depending on one's point of view. Lorenzo's cartoonish characters are more friendly than frightening. Papa wears a giant oven mitt and Mama has tall Marge Simpson-meets-Bride of Frankenstein hair. The colorful scenery is packed with spooky details, like the mummy mom's "bed" being a sarcophagus. The penciled colors take the edge off any frights and create a gently macabre atmosphere. When the Scares find Moldilocks, there is an initial frightening moment of suspense-what will these monsters do to her? It turns out they adopt the apparently orphaned zombie girl into their mixed-up monster family. VERDICT This change to the traditional ending adds a warm element of familial acceptance. Recommended for a Halloween storytime.-Chance Lee Joyner, Wilton Public and Gregg Free Library, NH

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2019
The traditional fairy tale gets a Halloween update and an adoption twist. Readers paying attention will notice the setup at the start of the tale: The haunted house the Scares live in is big enough for four but houses only three: Papa Scare (Frankenstein's monster), Mama Scare (a green-skinned mummy with Bride-of-Frankenstein hair), and Baby Scare (a tiny, redheaded, pale-skinned vampire tot). Papa's recipe makes four servings of Alpha-Bat Soup; Mama wishes for an assistant to help her in the lab; and Baby wants a playmate. On this night, the soup is too hot to eat, so the three take ghost-dog Plasma out for a walk. Meanwhile, Moldilocks, a green-skinned, black-haired zombie girl, is sleepwalking, her nose drawing her toward the smell of soup...and home. The rest unspools as the familiar tale does, albeit with some interesting décor in the house and a fly that may be Moldilocks' pet. The dark and spooky spread in which Moldilocks awakens to find the Scares' shadows looming over her ("How dare you...") resolves on the next page with a warm welcome into the family: "...eat without us!" "And they lived hauntingly ever after." Lorenzo's acrylic-and-colored-pencil illustrations feature rich and vivid colors; lots of bones, skulls, and spiderwebs make up most of the home's ambience. How this unusual family finds exactly what they were missing makes for a satisfying tale. (Picture book. 4-8)

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