She Wanted to Be Haunted
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
This delightfully spooky picture book answers the important question of how you can be your very best self.
If only I were haunted-I'd never be alone!
But look at me: I'm cheerful!
I've got to change my tone!
Clarissa the cottage is adorable . . . bright pink, with windows that wink, and flowers growing all around. But Clarissa doesn't want to be adorable--being cute is boring.
Couldn't she be like her father, a creepy castle home to vampires and crypts? Or like her mother, a witch's hut full of spells and smells? If only she were haunted! Then she'd be less ordinary . . .
What will it take for Clarissa to go from adorable to horrible?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This winsomely warped story stars Clarissa, an "adorable" but miserable bubblegum-pink cottage surrounded by daisies. Her father is a haunted castle who's home to vampires and bats, and her mother is a witch's hut filled with rats, frogs, and spells, but "unlike both her parents,/ Clarissa wasn't host/ to anybody scary / not even one wan ghost!" Her parents' efforts to help backfire amusingly: the castle offers a rain cloud that generates flowers, and the hut provides a bottle of noxious vapors that, rather than repel innocent creatures, attracts adorable puppies. Though Clarissa fears the worst when a pristine unicorn appears, "sometimes life has funny plans/ that we cannot predict./ The unicorn was vicious / he bit and spat and kicked." The tone can feel muddled, mixing useful commentary about being oneself with a self-critical protagonist who, perhaps concerningly, ends up with a "brute." But deadpan verse by Ewert propels the tale, and cartoons, painted by Ghahremani in gouache with graphite accents, escalate the humor. Ages 3 6.
