SANTA CLAWS

Monster Town is the setting for this mischievously macabre Christmas story, which will appeal to fans of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. The over-the-top story is told in rhyming couplets that beg to be read aloud in a deep, spooky voice with dramatic pauses for effect. Two monster boys, Mack and Zack, are getting ready for Christmas, decorating with skulls and bones and whipping up some poisonberry pies and eggnog mixed with spider feet for Santa’s treats. Santa Claws is an amorphous figure in a bulging, “blood-red” suit with a snake in his boot and horns poking out around his hat. He arrives by dragon power and leaves plenty of “gross and grisly Christmas toys” around the dead pine tree decorated with eyeballs. Aptly named illustrator Grimly provides watercolor-and-ink illustrations in a muted palette that strike just the right balance: weirdly edgy but not too terribly scary. Additional humor is added to the endpapers and back cover with ads for invented products such as “Vampbell’s Garbage Soup.” A tasty Christmas treat for kids who like their humor gross and their satires snappy. (Picture book. 5-8)