Bloomsbury ISBN 9781408868829 £6.99
The front cover gives us a clue to this picture book being mostly about the pictures. A large cast of weird and wonderful characters – pupils at the school – are lined up in front of their skeleton teacher, all of them looking ready to cause havoc. A double page spread provides a cutaway of the interior of the school showing us its layout, including Cauldron Class, Werewolf Observatory and Secret Passage to Haunted Library. Rhyming couplets guide us through a typical school day, with the action-packed illustrations providing the detail. There’s humour to counteract the potentially scary element of a book packed with monsters, ghosts and skeletons, and a fun ending where the scary noise is that of girls and boys heading to their human school. And I was pleased that Sam Lloyd avoided the temptation to spell his title ‘Skeleton Skool’! Age range: 5-7.
Pam Dowson, retired primary teacher and PGCE tutor
