Thanks, CBR10 Bingo, for getting me to read a book I normally wouldn’t!

So the book I was going to read for this square is a bit longer than I was expecting, and perhaps more dense, so I “cheated” from my original plan and looked for a children’s book that would work!  As we’re in October, I looked for a Halloween book, because why not? So I came across Skeleton for Dinner by Margery Cuyler, purely because the author happens to live in my state.  So let’s see how it is!

I quite like the artwork.  The witches have a lot of detail, and tree looks almost fractal.  The text moves about in different shapes to go along with the lines instead of plain text blocks.  There are lines that rhyme and lines that don’t, so we have some variety. Skeleton has quite a round head, which is strange, because there are skull-shaped skulls around one of the witch’s necks. But then again, it makes the character less scary to children, I suppose.  And the artwork for Ghost is quite lovely, and brings across the idea of movement.

The whole plot is a case of a misunderstanding.  The witches says they must have their friends Ghost, Ghoul, and Skeleton for dinner.  Skeleton hears this and assumes they mean to eat them. He runs to his friends to warn them and they go into hiding.  A crow saves the day by explaining that “having” someone for dinner means to invite, not eat. (Although the mistake is easy to understand in this case.)  Another passing thought is how Skeleton and Ghost will eat? Ghost doesn’t have a corporeal form (and we know from other ghost tales that they can’t eat, see Exhibit A: Harry Potter, and Exhibit B: Casper the Friendly Ghost.)  And Skeleton says he doesn’t have a stomach, but admits to being hungry. Is he cursed to a after-lifetime of constant hunger? Is that why skeletons are often angry, that they are, in fact, just hangry? Could we defeat an army of undead skeletons by offering them some sort of skeletal Snickers bars?  These are the real questions, people. The real questions.

This fulfills the CBR10 Bingo square of “Home, Something, Home.”  Margery Cuyler lives in New Jersey!