Monsters you can count on

For AP Weekly Features

Ten zany Halloween rhymes add up to counting fun in "Monster Countdown" (Mondo, $14.95, ages 3-7) by Pamela Jane, with full-page illustrations in crayon on colored paper by Nick Zarin-Ackerman.

More goofy than scary, these monsters frolic, tumble and flip, and have lopsided grins and crayon teeth.

"Ten monsters on the washer jump in with all the clothes. They spin around until they're flat, then hang out by their toes."

Snacking, and hanging on hooks in the closet and in the sink, these monsters are friendly playmates.

------ Cackle Cook has the recipe for Halloween fun

The green-faced, auburn-haired, world-famous Cackle Cook is feeling the pressure of preparing a Halloween meal. So she calls upon her companion Igor to help find the ingredients needed for her fabulous monster stew, in "Cackle Cook's Monster Stew" (Golden Books, $9.95, ages 4-7) by Patricia Rae Wolff.

"Igor, my pet," she implores each time she sends him out with a most unusual shopping list.

Igor selects items on the list, including nightingale feathers and iguana toes, from the monster gourmet salad bar at the local grocery store.

"An ancient ape's short armpit hair, a half-inch square of big brown bear, six heaping cups of black-cat paws, two dozen dirty dragon claws, eleven large eel eggs, fourteen fresh frog legs ...."

The chef's list cleverly becomes a rhyming alphabet of ghoulish ingredients: "Ape hair, Bear square, Cat paws, Dragon claws, Eel eggs, Frog legs."

With ingredients from A to Z, the stew is a Halloween hit at Cackle Cook's Famous Restaurant.

S.D. Schindler's richly detailed and inventive gouache and watercolor illustrations bring Wolff's cartoonish monsters to life.

------ Witch with a broom full of friends

The witch in "Room on the Broom" (Dial, $15.99, ages 4-8) by Julia Donaldson is not the scary kind. Although she has a bump on her nose and a black cauldron on her broom, she also has a polka dot bow in her braided hair. She has a tiger-striped cat instead of a black one, and she wears purple and red -- and a smile.

As the friendly witch flies around, she drops things and picks up passengers who return her lost items.

"Over the reeds and the rivers they flew. The bird shrieked with glee and the stormy wind blew. They shot through the sky to the back of beyond. The witch clutched her bow but let go of her wand."

A frog in a pond finds the wand:

"He dropped it politely, then said with a croak (as the witch dried the wand on a fold of her cloak), I am a frog, as clean as can be. Is there room on the broom for a frog like me?"

The group grows and faces its biggest challenge when the broom, filled to groaning, breaks in two, dropping passengers and leaving the witch alone to face a hungry dragon.

Illustrator Axel Scheffler's colorful characters complement Donaldson's entertaining rhymes.

------ More Halloween treats

--"On Halloween Night" (Puffin, $5.99 paperback, ages 2-6) by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Renee Andriani. A breathless tale in the vein of "The House that Jack Built."

--"A World Full of Monsters" (HarperCollins, $15.95, preschool) by John Troy McQueen, illustrated by Marc Brown. A long time ago, monsters danced on stage, worked the farms and fought fires.

--"Teddy Bears' Trick-or-Treat" (Scholastic, $14.95, ages 3-6) by Sam Williams, illustrated by Jacqueline McQuade. A gentle pop-up book with an interactive Halloween adventure.