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YOUNGER FICTION
Reynolds, Aaron

Troubling Tonsils!

88 pp. | Simon | September, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9781665961080 $13.99
(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Peter Brown. Jasper Rabbit, protagonist of the picture book Creepy Carrots! and its sequels (most recently Creepy Crayon!, rev. 9/22), serves as the Rod Serling-like narrator of this early-chapter-book series opener. "Creepy things lie on the following pages...You may possibly find yourself peeing your pants." Duly warned, readers meet Charlie Marmot, who is scheduled to have his tonsils removed and plans to keep them in a jar for show-and-tell. But when the time comes for the procedure, the tonsils are already missing...and then it gets weirder. The tonsils are sentient, they have their own lines of dialogue, and they're out for revenge. Sophisticated vocabulary and turns of phrase ("regardless of the cause, there are no tonsils currently residing in Charlie's throat") make this title, full of both horror and humor, a good choice for confidently independent readers or for reading aloud together in ominous tones. Mixed-media illustrations, some of them chillingly stark, in a pitch-perfect palette of black-and-white punctuated with tonsil pink, add to the cinematic feel. Hand to readers demanding scary books -- if they're willing to swallow quite the premise. Needs new series title: Jasper Rabbit's Creepy Tales!
Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2025

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