A collection of jaunty and mischievously unsettling poems for middle-grade readers from award-winning poet Shannon Bramer and artist Cindy Derby, who brought us Climbing Shadows (NCTE Notable Poetry Book and Verse Novel, shortlisted for the Rocky Mountain Book Award).
Shannon's twenty-eight poems in Nightmare Jones send delightful shivers down the spine. Written in a variety of styles and forms, they encompass magic realism and influences from fairy tales, folklore and ghost stories, alongside more contemporary explorations of unusual creatures, misunderstood monsters and commonplace human fears (both ridiculous and sublime!). Cindy Derby's evocative line and watercolor illustrations inhabit these weird and wonderful works with her characteristic flair for the strange and witchy wonders of the world.
In these poems what makes a person scared might also make them sad, or even make them laugh, as Bramer writes from a place of wonder, empathy, curiosity and reverence for the deep dark woods we all have inside us. If you've ever wanted to spend some time in a witch's garden or wondered what spiders do with our worries, this is the poetry book for you!
Key Text Features
dialogue
epigraph
illustrations
poems
recipes
table of contents
vignettes
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone
A collection of jaunty and mischievously unsettling poems for middle-grade readers from award-winning poet Shannon Bramer and artist Cindy Derby.
• SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK: The humor and fear factor of these poems will have strong appeal for middle-grade readers. The poems feature spooky characters like the Chatterbox, the Ghost in the Mirror and Nightmare Jones himself, and are accompanied by breathtaking illustrations by Cindy Derby.
• NEW HALLOWEEN CLASSIC: Nightmare Jones is a creepy, kooky, poetic companion to frightening kids' classics like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. Its spooky cover and contents make it an excellent addition to Halloween-themed collections and displays.
• AWARD-WINNING DUO: Shannon Bramer's most recent poetry collection for children, Robot, Unicorn, Queen (Groundwood Books; 2023), is an NCTE Notable Poetry Book and won the David Booth Children's and Youth Poetry Award in 2024. Cindy Derby is an internationally lauded illustrator, having been award the Caldecott Honor and a Golden Kite Honor for Outside In (HarperCollins; 2021), and a Crystal Kite Award for The Boy and the Gorilla (Candlewick Press; 2020), among many others.
dialogue;epigraph;illustrations;poems;recipes;table of contents;vignettes
