Poultrygeist
Eric Geron and Pete Oswald
Walker Books

With a touch of the macabre, this is a deliciously dark tale that begins before the title page, with a chicken crossing the road – as chickens do – to get to the other side. Only the result of this one so doing is that it’s splatted against the front of a huge tractor-trailer becoming a ghostly version of its former self.

The next thing the creature knows is that it’s greeted by a host of other animal ghosts informing it of its new status as the titular Poultrygeist and ordering the erstwhile ‘spring chicken’ to start acting scarily – like a ‘foul, fowl’ no less.

Despite haunting not really being the chicken’s thing, the now featherless creature ends up frightening its fellow phantoms.

(It does though give a nod to readers/listeners to make sure they’re not similarly scared at any point.)

With its hilarious finale, this has just the right amount of scariness for most youngsters, thanks in no small part to Pete Oswald’s superb artistry. His use of colour for the ghosty animals against a black background is brilliantly done with the spoken part of the text corresponding in colour to the speaker and that revelation of the poultrygeist’s scariest possible, ‘not even scary’ face is show-stoppingly superb.