Gotcha! A funny fairy tale hide-and-seek by Clotilde Perrin

This is one of those titles that isn't really suited to library circulation, but it's so fun you just can't resist! At almost 16" high, it's definitely oversized, but is also a slim volume, with a paper over board binding.

The snarling monster on the front is the impetus for the story, as we open the page we see a smirking child in a furry suit turning the corner of the page and encounter... a nasty hairball! Glowing yellow hair, staring eyes, creepy claws, and "feculent feet" are coming our way! Fortunately, the next page holds a brick house that we can hide inside. It is, in fact, the brick house of the three little pigs and there are lots of flaps to lift, details to observe, and hiding places to find. But there are two more monsters - and two more fairy tale houses - left in the story, so don't get comfortable yet! After hiding from the "stinkwart" in Hansel and Gretel's gingerbread house (watch out for the bones left here and there) and from the "creeper" in Sleeping Beauty's castle, the three monsters band together and chase the reader onto a bookshelf of stories. I personally appreciated the ghoulish rendition of The wolf and the seven little goats, a favorite of my childhood. But all is not lost - the intrepid child at the beginning, glimpsed throughout by careful searchers, has a plan to defeat the monsters. Into the oven, down the toilet and out the window they go and the story ends with the backside of a furry monster neatly placed on the back cover.

Delightfully gruesome and intricately illustrated, this will not be for every library. The binding does not feel very sturdy and, unless you have extremely careful little patrons, the many flaps and die cut page shapes are not likely to last long. Its large size will make it awkward to shelve and more sensitive parents are sure to be horrified by the plethora of bones, creepy monsters, and frequent recurrence of creatures being baked in ovens. It's also a little bit more expensive than the average picture book, about $25 depending on your vendor discount.

Verdict: Despite the drawbacks, this book is a lot of fun and is a great addition to collections that include lift-the-flap and pop-up books or have a large enough population that there will be no shortage of readers to appreciate its originality and creepy humor.

ISBN: 9781776574698; Published October 2022 by Gecko Press; Review copy provided by publisher