What we know, and the animals only intuit, is that there’s a meteorite plummeting earthwards, likely to crush at least one of them. When I was little, when I would visit libraries I would go to the scary section, or at least the mystery section. I’d never done a book that fits on that shelf before and this seemed like a good way to do that.” Canadian artist Jon Klassen is talking about his upcoming project The Skull, a deliciously creepy story about a girl, who is fleeing something unknown, and the skull she befriends in a mysterious mansion in the woods. They dance, eat pears, get rid of a skeleton that paces the corridors at night, and this being a Klassen book, there is darkness to the narrative, mysterious parts of the plot that are never fully explained, and humour. The illustrations are, of course, also full of wit and flair.

Caldecott medalist Klassen’s signature style is brought to bear on a Tyrolean tale imbued with equal parts comfort and creepiness. . . . One can only hope that children will tell and retell this reinterpretation many times to themselves throughout the years. Employing his customary pitch-perfect tonal gymnastics, only Klassen could inspire readers to want craniums as pals. Series fans won’t be disappointed, but young readers and listeners who know only the original ditty may find this a touch bland. KLASSEN: A lot of my favorite stories - they aren't necessarily about a moral or a lesson. They're just sort of like, I feel better now in a very general way. And that was sort of the idea here. It was like, do you feel better? Like, I think I felt better.

Klassen has proved especially good at introducing new, often solo, young readers to the unsettling but intriguing place where fear becomes an essential narrative element, offering enough humor and absurdity to provide comfort on the journey. Such is the case with The Skull, a reimagining of a Tyrolean folktale that shows a young girl’s resolve against unnamed, unexplained threats. . . . the book offers a lesson on the usefulness of fear and likely a reminder of what kids already suspect: the world can be awful and scary, but empathy and friendship can arise from its darkest places. Klassen’s recognizable graphite-and-ink illustrations capture the haunting—yet somehow charming—atmosphere of the stark Austrian setting, where shadows loom, bones come to life, and apricot sunshine cuts through the gloom. . . . Is the story creepy? You bet, but it’s also weirdly sweet and characterized by agency, kindness, and choice. . . . Klassen's newest offering will be highly coveted. The Skull will be the fifth book illustrated and written by Klassen, who has also worked with collaborators such as Mac Burnett, with whom he created Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. Klassen “loves” collaborating but might concentrate on more solo projects in future, saying: “I have enough of my own work out now that it doesn’t feel so precious or paralysing to make more. I think I’m getting looser, so maybe that means I’ll do more on my own.” Planning ahead Echoes of other forbidding fairy tales pervade this high-stakes telling, in which Otilla’s primal bravery and sly wit result in an arc from flight to mutual reliance. Its plot – if you’ll forgive spoilers for a story of barely 250 words – is a tale of loss, deceit and vigilante ­justice, about a bear who has lost his hat. With implacable solemnity, he asks one animal after another if they have seen it. “I haven’t seen any hats anywhere,” says a shifty, hat-wearing rabbit. “I would not steal a hat. Don’t ask me any more questions.”

Klassen’s recognizable graphite-and-ink illustrations capture the haunting—yet somehow charming—atmosphere of the stark Austrian setting, where shadows loom, bones come to life, and apricot sunshine cuts through the gloom. . . . Is the story creepy? You bet, but it’s also weirdly sweet and characterized by agency, kindness, and choice. . . . Klassen’s newest offering will be highly coveted. It was a collection of short ­stories, supposedly for children, but decidedly ghoulish and ­macabre. One of them, “The Skull”, was an old Tyrolean folk tale about a girl who finds herself alone in a strange house in the woods. Alone, that is, except for a talking skull. Caldecott medalist Klassen’s signature style is brought to bear on a Tyrolean tale imbued with equal parts comfort and creepiness. They have two children, six-year-old Isaac and four-year-old August. “I don’t read them my own books. I get really scared of it, because kids are brutal. If they’re bored they’ll tell you they’re bored, they don’t care if they break your heart.”Having eaten pretty much everything on land in 13 previous versions of the classic song, Colandro’s capaciously stomached oldster goes to sea.

Employing his customary pitch-perfect tonal gymnastics, only Klassen could inspire readers to want craniums as pals.Film is still important to him; indeed, he embarks on each new book with a particular film in mind. This Is Not My Hat, in which a small fish boasts of its stolen bowler before being bumped off mid-book, follows the narrative arc of Psycho, while We Found a Hat, in which two tortoises discover a fedora and can’t decide who should keep it, was inspired by The ­Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Humphrey Bogart. A] droll and delicious tale. . . Any disquiet that children ages 6-10 might harbor about a talking skull will dissipate in the light of the skull’s friendly attitude and gracious manners. It was the first book Klassen had written, and proved a tough sell. “We talked to nine or 10 publishers, and all but one didn’t like the ­ending.” The first nine – all ­American – urged him not to kill the fluffy bunny. The tenth was British, and she loved it. “Most British and Canadian comedy is very low-key – there’s a dryness to the humour,” says Klassen. “Whenever I go over to the UK, it’s like ‘Oh, OK! They understand the joke here. I don’t have to preface this with anything.’”

KLASSEN: And she finds a house in the woods, and there's an animate skull living in there. And I thought, that's such a great start for a story. KLASSEN: This new book is sort of the first time I think I've done, like, a let's-tell-a-scary-story kind of feeling one. The other ones are edgy, but I think it kind of sneaks up on you a little bit. KLASSEN: Right away they seem gentle with each other. And I really wanted to write that without sort of writing it explicitly - just be like, these guys really like each other. Often this happens, where you have a whole gymnasium of kids – the rowdiest ones – and you’ll tell all your stories, and then at the end they’re all just hyper and they want to go outside, or it’s lunchtime. But you say: ‘Does anybody want to hear a scary story?’ And you could hear a pin drop.” KLASSEN: And I like to go to folktale sections of, like, libraries or bookstores when you're in a different town just 'cause they usually have some random local stuff that you wouldn't find anywhere else.

Success!

It’s the first time Klassen has dipped a toe in the gothic genre, but he remembers how much he enjoyed ghost stories growing up. “If you do it right, kids love this,” he says. “If you can hold their hand properly and take them through a scary story, they will ­follow you anywhere. Children love the macabre. But just as Agatha Christie turned murder into a comfort read, so the successful children’s writer knows how to make ghoulishness cosy. In the modern picture book, ghosts are typically benevolent, and even in Roald’s Dahl’s The Witches – “This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches” – the terror of the story is countered by the affection between the young boy and his grandmother. This might all sound somewhat Hammer Horror for a book aimed at children as young as six. But as with The Witches, the sense of companionship between Otilla and her eccentric host softens the eeriness. And as the skull reveals his vulnerability, it will fall to the unflappable Otilla to save them both. By the end of the book we still haven’t learned what Otilla was running from, or how the skull lost his body. But we have seen how human sensibilities can turn even the creepiest character into something endearing. He has a soft spot for the skull, who tries to be a good host when Otilla arrives but is ultimately just a skull rolling around on the floor. “A lot of my books are about confusion and a feeling of only being partly in control. I think there is a reason he’s a cursed skull and I was super into the idea that he wasn’t a great guy and she knows that, but she’s running away. She takes him for who he is when they meet.”