GIRACULA

When vampire bats go for the longest
necks around, Giracula is the result.

When the poor giraffe awakens, he
has fangs and a cloak, though the latter comes off in a collision with a drone
(and is back in place again a page turn later). He lands right in front of a
bakery, and a good thing this is, as this vampiric giraffe craves sweets
instead of blood, for no articulated reason. “Never before had our / friend
felt like this. / He’d go bonkers, BANANAS / without a treat fix!” Indeed, by
the time the treats are gone, the shop is a mess, and his tummy is aching with
all the sugar he’s consumed. The townspeople catch him on his second sweets
raid, his mouth dripping cherry-pie filling, and they assume the worst, all
save a dark-haired girl with brown skin who offers a deal: She’ll make him
treats if he’ll stop stealing. But this is never depicted. Instead, Giracula is
pictured in a full tuxedo against a castle backdrop, a light-skinned child
offering him a chocolate bar while the text reads that the town’s had no more
trouble since the monster left. Watkins’ rhymes can be quite rough (“clouds”
and “sounds,” “manners” and “answers”), and the scansion occasionally falters.
Tuchman’s cartoon illustrations are amusing enough, but they are not enough to
draw readers back again.

A head-scratcher and series opener best
left to the bats and other things that go bump in the night. (Picture book.
4-8)