Review: Adam Rex Frankenstein makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake

Continuing my Halloween in May event here is a short introduction to Adam Rex's two works Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake, the subtitle of the former being And Other Stories You're Sure to Like, Because They're All About Monsters and Some of Them Are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don't You? Well, All Right Then.

Submission guidelines for children's story mags and books--when I was looking them up in the '90's that is--were not that keen on the children's writer/artist. They wanted to match the writer and artist themselves. In a way they are like movie producers--while there are some great movie producers out there, most of the time they are business people with no real sense of art. Besides, I understand why these book publishers would say that. It's because writers/artists might fancy themselves as good writers and good artists. But then they're simultaneously ignoring could-be Seusses and Sendaks.

Whoa! Sorry about the digression.

I've read a couple of these poems for Halloween poetry readings at Northwestern State University at Leesville-Ft. Polk where I teach. Rex's breadth of artwork ranges from Norman Rockwell caricatures, classic black and white parodies of Universal monsters, great ink drawings and apparent parodies of Gnomes by Wil Nuygen and Rien Poortvliet. But his style isn't limited to these. You can check out Adam Rex's website and his blog.

My favorites from the first book are the

• "Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich"
• "An Open Letter from Wolfman's Best Friend"
• "The Dentist"
• "Count Dracula Doesn't Know He's Been Walking Around All Night with Spinach in His Teeth"

Incidentally, I've just realized that there is a subgenre of dentist horror stories and nothing makes more sense really. Doesn't it? The Dentist, and Little Shop of Horrors (pick your version), and even Marathon Man--"Is it safe?". I'm sure there are more.

And here's a video of Rex discussing his second set of children's horror poetry.



Thanks for reading. Enjoy.