by Adam Rex
No ghosts are seen on Halloween,
except for kids in sheets.
No zombies ring for anything
apart from tricks or treats.
Though people say today’s the day
when bogeymen come out to play,
November 1st is when the worst
of monsters hit the streets.
And in disguise the dead arise
to sell us magazines.
In ties and slacks they hand out tracts
as fine, upstanding teens.
Just like the kids the night before
these horrors go from door to door
with vacuums, mops, or other props,
and boring sales routines.
It might feel mean on Folloween
to just ignore your door.
“A Girl Scout troop is on my stoop,”
you’ll mutter. “Nothing more.”
You want a snack so bad it hurts,
but trust me–those are ghouls in skirts.
With that in mind you’ll find
you’re not so hungry anymore.
Copyright © 2008 Adam Rex. From the book Frankenstein Takes the Cake. HMH Books for Young Readers. Reprinted by permission of the author.
When I wrote this I lived in Philadelphia, and people rang my doorbell a lot and got me out of bed on Saturday mornings to tell me things I was too sleepy to listen to. This poem was my feeble way of getting back at them.
Harcourt created this web page to accompany the book: http://www.harcourtbooks.com/Frankenstein/
You may also find worthwhile stuff on my blog: http://adamrex.blogspot.com/
Adam Rex grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, the middle of three children. He was neither the smart one (older brother) or the cute one (younger sister), but he was the one who could draw. He took a lot of art classes as a kid, trying to learn to draw better, and started painting when he was 11. Later he got a BFA from the University of Arizona, and met his physicist wife Marie (who is both the smart and cute one).
Adam and Marie live in Tucson, where Adam draws, paints, writes, spends too much time on the internet, and listens to public radio. Adam is nearsighted, bad at all sports, learning to play the theremin, and usually in need of a shave. He can carry a tune, if you don’t mind the tune getting dropped and stepped on occasionally. He never remembers anyone’s name until he’s heard it at least three times. He likes animals, spacemen, Mexican food, Ethiopian food, monsters, puppets, comic books, 19th century art, skeletons, bugs, and robots.
His first picture book, The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake, was published by FSG in 2003. His picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, a collection of stories about monsters and their problems, was a New York Times Bestseller. 2007 saw the release of his first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday. His second, a book for teens and adults called Fat Vampire, was published in July 2010.
Garlic and crosses are useless against Adam. Sunlight has been shown to be at least moderately effective. A silver bullet does the trick. Pretty much any bullet, really.
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