We’re used to getting picture box from John Klassen. This year he does a little longer story and gives us the Skull. This was originally a folktale of a certain sect of Austrian people. There is a small person running away from something into the woods. They come across the house, and in the house, there is the skull who needs protecting from the rest of the skeleton. This is a folktale in the true tradition of folktales. It doesn’t have the happy everything magical ending that you would see with something Disney has gotten a hold of. If this was Cinderella, toes would be coming off. But in this case, it’s the Skull. The artwork is amazing which is what anybody expects from Klassen and the story is just on the right side of dark for spooky scary times, without being horror or too dark for young children. I loved everything about this, and in the author’s note at the end, John even talks about how he originally wrote the story and where his mind took him to the book that was published. This book is bound to be a classic just like the rest of his picture books that I’ll be heading down to my nieces and nephews for a long time to time.