Synopses & Reviews
Enter the Scarum Fair ... if you dare! Take a ride on the Scary-Go-Round and Teacup Terror, or enter the Coffin Race. Meet The Head, The Hand, and Madame Ratowski, the palm reader who likes to be paid in swiss cheese. Visit the chiropractic tent of Dr. Crunch, who'll "pulverize your sternum, and disconnect your knee, then move your metatarsals where your tailbone used to be." And unusual food awaits: sample some cat-hair stew, I-scream, and a type-A blood-red punch. Cap off the entertainment with a special event: Count Dracula's wedding. Jessica Swaims's deliciously creepy, funny poems are brought to life by Carol Ashley's gorgeous, ghoulish illustrations in this CRA Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Silver Honor Book.
Review
"A little bit silly, a little bit sinister, Swaim's poems introduce different denizens and attractions at the playfully twisted Scarum Fair."--Publishers Weekly
Review
"A little bit silly, a little bit sinister. . . . A punchy treat for fans of the macabre." --Publishers Weekly
Review
"Prepare for a deliciously scary and occasionally gross carnival experience. . . . Will keep kids turning pages." --
Kirkus Reviews"Students will be clamoring to get their hands on it." --Library Media Connection
Review
"There's something about the singsong nature of rhyming poetry - the assurance of that inevitable final-line shock - that makes it an ideal delivery method for the spooky." --Booklist
Synopsis
Enter the Scarum Fair, poet Swaim's hilariously ghoulish gathering of thrill rides, creepy creatures, and ghastly sideshow entertainers. Full color.
About the Author
Jessica Swaim is a former children's librarian and currently catalogs library materials for a school district in Colorado. She is the author of a rhyming picture book,
The Hound form the Pound. She lives near Denver, Colorado.
Carol Ashley earned a BFA in animation and an MFA in film and art from the California Institute of the Arts. She worked on such films as Over the Hedge, Madagascar, and Flushed Away. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. This is her first picture book.