Thursday, October 28, 2010

Review: Ten Little Zombies

Andy Rash, 2010, Chronicle Books

There are, perhaps unsurprisingly, a great many 'novelty' zombie books doing the rounds at present - further evidence (if any was needed) that zombies now represent serious money to publishers - and Ten Little Zombies is one of the more amusing of the bunch. Subtitled 'A Love Story', this small, 40-odd-paged hardback book comprises nothing more than a simple rhyme (recited to the meter of 'Ten Little Indians') detailing the flight of the narrator and his lady love from the zombies of the piece. To whit:

'Ten little zombies walking in a line
'One stepped in a campfire. Now there are nine.'

And so on. Illustrated throughout with black and white (and red!) cartoons, the book concludes with a rather clever and macabre zombie-related twist that appealed sufficiently to my twisted sense of humour for me to purchase a copy.

If you dislike novelty zombie-themed publications on principle, you'll probably dislike this book too. On the other hand, if you don't take your zombies too seriously, and appreciate a bit of black wit, then Ten Little Zombies is worth adding to your personal library, if only to coax a 'WTF?' out of visitors.

(Ten Little Zombies is distributed in Australia by Hardie Grant, via Random House Australia).