The Cyclops Witch and the Heebie-Jeebies

February 1, 2019
A witch confronts her greatest fear: helpful human children in perky uniforms.Green-skinned and with a big pointy hat cocked stylishly over her one huge eye, the Cyclops Witch fearlessly takes on winged monkeys and other creatures--but when a diverse quartet of smiling young scouts appears on her porch one night, she "blitzed out her back window, running like mad. / 'Gah! Children!' she shrieked. 'This is so very bad!' " Undeterred by her efforts to leave them in the clutches of a mothman, a vampire, or even a sea monster ("What a world!" she moans), her pursuers at last catch up and introduce themselves as Heebie-Jeebies Maria, Germaine, Hector, and Latasha: "We travel the world, over mountain, sea and prairie, / to help others overcome the things they find scary." Instantly cured, the witch helps the winged monkeys get over their fear of water and other good deeds, thus earning a sash and tiara of her very own. The meter and rhyme may be, to say the least, undisciplined ("Maria helped the hobgoblin be cool around fire, / and with Germaine's help, exercising's fun for Vampire"), but, cribbing freely from a certain classic movie, the Sullivan twins dish up a yarn replete with cute monsters, cuter children, an unusually memorable protagonist, and buckets of fluffy uplift. Readers will melt. (Picture book. 6-8)

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August 16, 2019

K-Gr 2-The Cyclops Witch isn't afraid of anything. Well, maybe one thing. When children show up at her door, she's horrified. They're dirty! They'll tickle! And roughhouse! She knows how to frighten the nasty kids off, though: she'll lure them from one scary local beast to another, and they'll never show up again. It doesn't work out quite as planned, as the witch discovers that the children are really "Heebie-Jeebies," a scout-like troop that aims to help the ostensibly scary beasts get over their phobias. The rhyming narrative goes on and one and occasionally features clunky and overly long lines. Still, the book, with its pastel, computer-generated images of not-so-scary beasts, might help readers with phobias to realize that facing them is the way to go. VERDICT A worthwhile addition where children with phobias need assistance.-Henrietta Verma, Credo Reference, New York, NY

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