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review: fiction for children

Zombiekins, by Kevin Bolger, illustrated by Aaron Blecha, Razorbill, 206 pages, $13.50

The girls got the Twilight series, and all the vampire and werewolf spinoffs. Their little brothers get Zombiekins, and they're laughing - as is anyone else, male or female, old or young, who picks up Kevin Bolger's latest book.

This, by the author of Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger, is one of those books full of inside jokes for the adult along for the ride. The kids will love the idea of fearful and uncool Stanley buying a strange and ugly stuffie at the neighbourhood witch's yard sale and having it turn his classmates into zombies, and they'll laugh at the descriptions of the other students.

Take this bit about the Kindergarten students playing "non-gender-specific role-playing activities":

"In the Playhouse, one boy was pretending to be the kind of daddy who liked to wear an apron and bake mud pies, while the girl he was playing with was pretending to be the kind of mommy who liked to throw dishes and yell at you to get a job. And in the middle of the busy room, one child stood all by himself, picking his nose with intense concentration."

My son laughed aloud - and not for the same reasons I did.

I worried, though, he might find the material a bit too gory, but these are kids accustomed to playing Zombie Farm on their iPods (think Farmville, but with zombies that invade and eat the brains of Old McDonald, lawyers and others). Zombies - and their behaviour - are part of their vernacular.

And all readers with a rebellious streak will recognize the automaton attitude of the students (read: zombies) at Stanley's school in Dementedyville - the way they line up on one side of the hall (as my son's class is instructed, to avoid trampling the Grade 1s), the way they take their seats as soon as they're told, and the way the teachers don't see anything abnormal in that.

Bolger skewers the teachers ("The Teachers' Lounge was full of old pizza boxes and empty glasses with little umbrellas in them") and their attitude ("as far as Mr. Baldengrumpy was concerned, the zombies were model students. They didn't speak without raising their hands. Or interrupt his lessons with pesky questions. Or finish their work so quickly he had to find something else for them to do"). But his tone never reads as snarky or snide. He skewers dodgeball. He skewers Winnie the Pooh, Barney and Elmo. No one is safe, not the interfering neighbour, not Stanley, not even Bolger's own horror story, as he parodies the genre. With a zombie hot on his heels, Stanley "barely had time to dig his homework out of his knapsack, check that his mom had signed it, change into his indoor shoes, tie them in double knots, zip up his bag, open it again to grab a pencil from his pencil case, close it again, and narrowly escape."

Throughout, silly drawings by Aaron Blecha add visual amusement. Unlike Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney's cartoons, which help advance the plot, for the most part Blecha's drawings play a supporting role and one wishes he'd had more freedom (as in the nosy neighbour/voodoo scene).The end is carefully crafted to leave the door open for a sequel - actually, it boldly announces Zombiekins II, coming soon - and is a bit unsatisfying for that. But, like the Captain Underpants and Wimpy Kid books, my son likes it, enough to recommend it to his friends and hockey teammates. I will recommend it to their moms.

Sarah MacWhirter is The Globe and Mail's Travel editor.

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