You Might Be a Monster and Other Stories I Made Up!

Artist and toy designer Attaboy pairs flippant humor with page-popping digital cartoons in this collection of monster-themed poems. A pink, fang-toothed rabbit at a podium boasts, "I'm a legendary number-counter,/ made famous for my smarti-tood," while zombie clowns "crawl out from crusty earth" to celebrate children's birthdays. In the title poem, written in couplets and making up half the book's length, young Gustav Delite tries to prove that he's a monster and not just "a rude kid whose manners have failed." Readers should be drawn toward the subversive, macabre tone and lurid, Cartoon-Network-on-acid illustrations, but long narrative passages drag and some rhymes feel forced, making this debut a mixed bag. Ages 4%E2%80%938. (Aug.)