Books like Rotten Island
By William Steig
For the kid who roots for the villains and loves things that are deliberately, gloriously gross, Rotten Island turns the usual fairy-tale order upside down. gleefully grotesque, darkly funny, strangely poetic
A picture book imagines what would happen if animals wore clothes — a snake loses its clothes, a billy goat eats them, and a walrus stays soggy in a wet suit that never dries.
A boy imagines a very special house — one built entirely from his own head — where a turtle, a dead mouse, and an old lion can all move in, and nobody ever says stop.
On a goat farm, a girl named Carla and her father Hector face a mystery when a goat turns up flat as a pancake — the legendary work of El Chupacabras, the fearsome goatsucker.
A boy named Bobby is convinced his loud, yelling teacher is a real monster — until he runs into her at his favorite park and starts to see her differently.
Three dust bunnies named Ed, Ned, and Ted love rhyming games — bug, rug, mug, hug — but a fourth named Bob keeps breaking the pattern, trying to warn them about a broom-wielding danger heading their way.
A horribly hideous ogre leaves his swampy home to seek adventure, crossing paths with a witch, a knight, and a dragon on his quest to find an equally ugly princess to marry.
A giant squid swims through the ocean bragging that he's bigger than the shrimp, the crab, and the clams — until something much, much bigger shows up.
A mother cat leads her two kittens, Fluffy and Skinny, through washing, wall-walking, and claw-sharpening — while a third kitten, Boris, just naps through it all.
A boy named Buzz searches for something to catch for the Amazing Pet Show, and a hungry fly follows a smell — and the two strike up a friendship no one expects.
After happily-ever-after turns out to be anything but, a discontented prince sets off to find a witch who can turn him back into a frog — but every witch he meets has other plans.
Two kids stuck inside on a rainy day get an uninvited visitor — a tall cat in a striped hat who promises fun and games while their mother is away.
A clever mouse walks through the deep dark wood, escaping hungry predators by inventing a scary monster called the gruffalo — then discovers the gruffalo is real.
