Trick-or-Treat: A Happy Haunter’s Halloween

Fifteen short and often silly poems introduce Halloween monsters and spooks that ham it up in Carpenter’s in-your-face digital cartoons. An enormous pink monster devours everything in sight, including the words of its poem, which appear inside his gaping mouth: “I eat spiders./ I eat slugs./ I eat any/ kind of bugs./ I eat cats/ and doggies too./ I eat rats/ (they’re fun to chew).” A creepier entry portrays a girl’s dark night of the soul after reading the names on tombstones: “I’ve read them all and now I’m done./ I’ve seen my name on every one.” A gently ghoulish collection of Halloween poems to provoke both giggles and chills. Ages 5–8. (Aug.)