The Dangerous Alphabet - Neil Gaiman

Illustrator: Gris Grimly
For: ages 5 and up?
Published: Apriil, 2008
Rating: 2 (but I may change it if another reading helps me understand it....)
Read: Last month
Endpapers: Pale pumpkin

I read this twice. I wanted to love it. I feel stupid - I must admit I didn't get it. Gotta read some of the reviews for it one of these days.

The intro itself is intriguing: "A piratical ghost story in thirteen ingenious but potentially disturbing rhyming couplets, originally conceived as a confection both to amuse and to entertain by Mr. Neil Gaiman, scrivener, and then doodled, elaborated upon, illustrated, and beaten soundly by Mr. Gris Grimly, etcher and illuminator, featuring two brave children, their diminutive but no less courageous gazelle, and a large number of extremely dangerous trolls, monsters, bugbears, creatures, and other such nastiness, many of which have perfectly disgusting eating habits and ought not, under any circumstances, to be encouraged. Please Note: The alphabet, as given in this publication, is not to be relied upon and has a dangerous flaw that an eagle-eyed reader may be able to discern."

Intriguing? Yes! ! ! But . . . . . .

Illustrations are pen and ink colored with browns, greys, dusty yellows, with a touch of the endpaper color. The font looks like handwriting that might be used for adding scariness.