SCAREDY SNACKS!

Be careful what you nosh on—be very careful!

Some popular snack foods take center stage as actors in a satire of horror movies. It’s cleaning day in the snack cabinet, but Sprinkles, a sprinkles-encrusted cookie, is having none of it. She prefers to greet new neighbor Dr. Nuttenstein instead and convinces her pals Doodle and Pretzel to accompany her. Bad idea. The friends encounter a spooky house and a literally (pea)nutty professor who, Dr. Frankenstein–like, creates a monster: a peanut-butter sandwich cookie. Having hidden themselves out of fear, Sprinkles and company watch these goings-on in horror but are soon discovered and mortified by the doctor’s order to clean up the mess they made in his lab. Working collaboratively makes the job easier, but Sprinkles, no cleaner to begin with, abandons her post and heads home, followed by her friends. The story is funny overall, with a humorous premise, personable characters, and some comical lines, but the ending is flat; the idiom with which the story concludes is likely to go over young kids’ heads. However, readers will giggle at and savor the very colorful photographed dioramas filled with witty, inventive details composed of common household objects, gadgets, and other items that create “realistic” backgrounds. The three protagonists and doctor are bespectacled and have limbs fashioned from bent paper clips. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.3-by-18.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at 74.4% of actual size.)

Readers will want to think twice the next time they reach for a snack.