The Creepy Thing

by Fernando Krahn

childrens

Genres: Picture Books, Music

32 pages, Library Binding

First published March 1, 1982

About the author

Fernando Krahn was a Chilean cartoonist and plastic artist. A celebrated cartoonist, his works were published in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Reporter. In 1973 he was forced to flee his native country Chile to escape persecution after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Upon moving to Spain he had over 40 children's books published, which earned him the SM Ediciones' International Illustration Prize in 2001.

Reviews

[Melki]

Boy meets ferny thing. Ferny thing roams the town, popping up in unexpected places, startling all who encounter it. Boy charms ferny thing with sweet, sweet harmonica tunes.

Definitely one of the weirder wordless books I've encountered.

[Stacy]

This book is about a young man who goes fishing and catches a green thing that looks like a mix between moss and a mop's head. This thing dances when the young man plays music on his harmonica. The thing goes exploring and scares the townspeople and the young man has to find him. This is a picture book with no words, save for some signs in the illustrations. The illustrations are pretty boring - mostly black and white - while The Creepy Thing is green. Just a quick note: in a couple of illustrations, the secretary who is scared by The Creepy Thing is wearing a low-cut dress.

[Allie]

The things you find while weeding! The Creepy Thing is a wordless picture book about a creepy weird hairy... thing. A little boy become friends with it, but it escapes and wreaks a bit of havoc around town.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly]

This was fun, but lacked an ending ... I was reminded of Monty Python, where they would, in lieu of an ending, just stop (or perhaps stop and say "and now for something completely different). The book certainly ended, but not in a satisfying way—I liked it hitherto. I felt they could have amped up the drama ... it seems like they wanted to go full-on Movie Monster Mode, but instead of the levels of panic that would induce, the character responded as if a pigeon got into the building. It needed to be far more over the top to truly land. The illustrations leaned toward the fairly naturalistic, and again, that's not aiding the storyline.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Daniella Pozo]

A little guy looking for love and music

[Partridge Public]

Krahn, Ferando K-1st

[Nikki]

A wordless picture book - great fun for making your own story with kids.