Sammy’s Spooktacular Halloween

Trial and error meets trick-or-treat in this story of a Halloween high achiever. Sammy’s family is known for having “the biggest, creepiest, jump-scariest haunted house in the neighborhood.” But Sammy, the youngest, wants to do more than dress up for the festivities—he wants to be in on the actual planning. When his father says yes despite his brother and sister’s objections (“You’re too little to come up with anything creepy or cool!”), Sammy spends the entire next year consumed by iterations. “Every birthday party, sleepover, and family celebration saw the testing of new ideas,” writes Petrik (Johnny Works with One Hammer)—which means a zombie performance at Christmas and a surfeit of spiders on “Hallow-Easter.” But he wins over his skeptical siblings and becomes a full-fledged collaborator on a memorable haunted house. Broadly comic digital illustrations follow the narration closely as the relentlessly Halloween-obsessed protagonist propels the story forward. Ages 3–7. [em](July) [/em]