The Creakers

June 15, 2019
Where have all the grown-ups gone, and why? Lucy finds the answers under her bed. Suddenly left to their own devices, the children of Whiffington Town quickly devolve into a bewildered mob--except for 11-year-old Lucy Dungston. Unwillingly finding herself cast in the role of "the girl who knows what to do," she determines to find out "what the jiggins is going on." As it turns out, the garbage-loving, under-the-bed Creakers have bundled the adults off to the mysterious realm of Woleb to stop them from sending their lovely rubbish away to distant landfills. True to the spirit of his Dinosaur That Pooped a Planet (2017) and its sequels, Fletcher goes for the grotty, sending his doughty protagonist through slimy tunnels bearing an uncomfortable resemblance to alimentary tubes, past shops offering such delicacies as earwax ice cream, to a tavern where favored patrons get "extra snot drops" in their slops. From there the tale takes a distasteful white-savior turn: Lucy realizes that despite their nonstandard English and slovenly habits, Creakers have needs and children too, so she arranges to give them the moldering contents of the town dump. Devries' playful illustrations feature wide-eyed humans (all white except for one 6-year-old brown-skinned diva with "bouncy hair" and her father) in expressive poses and stubby, comically ugly monsters. Begins with a premise that doesn't bear examination and goes badly off the rails toward the end: skip. (map) (Farce. 9-11)

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September 1, 2019

Gr 3-5-When all of the adults disappear from the town of Whiffington, Lucy Dungston makes it her mission to find them and bring them back. She learns that the Creakers, garbage-eating monsters who live beneath the floorboards under children's beds, are responsible. To get the adults back, Lucy must go into the Woleb, the Creakers' world. With help from a few other children in the town, she discovers a way in-but can she get the adults out? The frequent authorial interjections ("OK, so things are about to get a little scary. Don't say I didn't warn you.") indicate that the story is supposed to be frightening, but most readers will find the bumbling Creakers more funny than scary, and Lucy and her friends never appear to be in any real danger. There's plenty of humor, some of it mildly scatological, but nothing too gross. Plentiful illustrations add to the book's wacky charm, and the narrative ends with Lucy and the townspeople finding a way to live in harmony with the Creakers, rather than in a pitched battle. VERDICT An additional purchase for libraries in need of funny, not very scary horror.-Misti Tidman, Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, OH

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