by Adam Rex
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
Went back into the bog too soon
“Too Soon!” his doting mother cried.
“You just ate lunch! Come back inside!
That Black Lagoon is dark and damp
You’re going to get a stomach cramp!
Just think of all you had for lunch:
A squid! Three eels! Hawaiian Punch!
A bag of chips! A crab knish!
A peanut butter jellyfish!
You have to wait an hour or more!”
She shouted from the kitchen door.
Alas, the Creature never heard.
He hadn’t listened to a word.
And rushing to the water’s bank,
he dived into the dismal dank…
then gurgled, got a cramp, and sank
Copyright © 2006 Adam Rex. From the book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. HMH Books for Young Readers. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I grew up in Arizona, and we had a swimming pool when I was a kid. So most of my childhood memories are about wanting to go swimming right after lunch and not being allowed to.
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.