A boy with ruby locks tours a graveyard, glimpsing the sinister circumstances behind each resident-s death. Pictures and poems don-t beat around the gravestone: -Freddie picked his nose and now he-s dead, dead, dead./ He picked and picked and picked until it bled, bled, bled.- The death of a character from a familiar rhyme is unveiled with acerbic humor: -Hoofprints. Feathers. Piles of dung!/ Who is laid below?/ Mysterious letters mark the stone:/ EIEIO.- Both Cyrus-s cerebral verses and Scrambly-s wide-eyed cadavers have a bit of an Edward Gorey-meets-Shel Silverstein vibe. Readers who prefer scary costumes should welcome this grisly portrait of strange (and eternal) bedfellows. Ages 3-7. Agent: Michael Stearns, Upstart Crow Literary. (July)

Gr 4-6 Macabre silliness to the max. A young narrator facilitates a reunion between a lost dog and his owner by searching a graveyard. As he looks from tombstone to tombstone for the ghost dog's master, readers learn the details of each person's life and death in a rhyming poem. They serve as a warning for those who don't care for their health or behave properly. Thumb suckers, nose pickers, and people who never floss their teeth are in for a ghastly demise. These characters have funny names, round bodies, and oversize eyes. Touches of red and yellow appear sporadically in the line drawings. Cyrus's poems are abundant in exaggeration and goofiness. About Mary Lou Smith, who died from choking on milk, he writes, "Everyone blows past their ears and nose./But never blow pasteurize." Death is not the end in this world though. Life continues, together, for owner and her pet, shown hugging at the top of the page in a cloud. Unusual, but fun. Tanya Boudreau, Cold Lake Public Library, AB, Canada

A child helps a lost ghost dog in a graveyard "ventur[e] through the gloom / to try to find his master's tomb." As the twosome passes headstones, readers learn about each grave-dweller's demise. Black-and-white gothic-style illustrations, enhanced by pops of color and buoyed by characters' cartoonish features, complement the dead-on pacing, tone, and content of these ghoulish yet funny rhyming poems.

Cyrus pens a collection sure to make the most poetry-averse at least smile if not laugh out loud. A redheaded boy walks through a graveyard pondering the stories of those whose gravestones he passes. A lost ghost dog accompanies him. Each droll poem has an element of the absurd, ludicrous or revolting. Whether the rhyming verse describes a skeleton obsessed with flossing his every bone or chants about Freddie, who picked his nose so much he died, Scrambly cleverly illustrates each unfortunate specter with a style reminiscent of Edward Gorey's. The backgrounds have a textured look and set off what looks like pen-and-ink drawings with mostly white fill. In the case of "McBuck Buck," the blue-gray wash of color represents "a pool of community drool." Even a familiar childhood rhyme provides inspiration: "Hoofprints. Feathers. Piles of dung! / Who is laid below? / Mysterious letters mark the stone: / EIEIO." As the two wander, it is clear that the ghost pup and narrator are not terribly compatible. Eventually, they come across ghostly Ophelia Heft, who beckons to her dog from the clouds. By the book's conclusion, though, the boy finds a new canine companion, orphaned when venal Mrs. McBride passed on. The author's sly humor coupled with the illustrator's whimsically dark details will surely have primary-grade readers cackling. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)