Creepy Tales
Reviewed by Dr. Jerry Flack
The hero of the “Creepy Tales!” series is Jasper Rabbit, an adventurer in Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown’s trilogy that is based on the eerie neon colors of orange, green, and purple. The “Creepy Tales!” series will hopefully keep coming with enough haunting and humorous colors to fill a deluxe crayon box.
The series began in 2012 with Creepy Carrots that won prestigious Caldecott Honors for illustrator Peter Brown. Two more stories have joined the somewhat scary, but far more humorous color-based series.
Readers first meet Jasper Rabbit as he satisfies his insatiable hunger for carrots, especially those in Crackenhopper Field that are both free and in great abundance. However, Jasper gradually begins to believe that something is amiss in his favorite carrot patch. After a successful athletic victory over the East Valley Hares, Jasper heads for Crackenhopper Field to celebrate. Just as he is about to have a carrot snack, Jasper hears a spooky noise. “Tunktunkruck” seems to signal the sound of carrots on the march. Creepy! A trio of great orange carrots seem to be following Jasper wherever he goes. His parents scoff at his over-active imagination as menacing carrots begin taking over his home. Unlike his parents, Jasper sees and hears threatening carrots everywhere he goes. Will creepy carrots capture Jasper? Collecting the tools of a skilled handyman, Jasper builds an impregnable fortification around Crackenhopper Field that is complete with a surrounding moat filled with alligators.
Jasper is now supremely confident. No more creepy carrots will haunt him. However, Jasper may have outsmarted himself. The abundantly rich carrot field will no longer be open to him.
Aaron Reynolds’s employment of anthropomorphism is charming throughout the series, and even a tiny bit scary. However, humor always triumphs. He introduces a moral to each of the creepy stories. Jasper’s greed is a worthy theme in Creepy Carrots. Avarice causes him fear, labor, and access to a monumental field of free carrots.
Peter Brown’s spare use of color is stunning. His award-winning images are reminiscent of those by the great illustrator, Chris Van Allsburg, in such classics as Jumanji and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. The grey-scale and black and white palette add a definite note of mystery and even danger. Brown’s use of shadow adds to the chilling atmosphere of Jasper’s carrot field encounter. The noir-like background makes the color of orange particularly dramatic. The cover and end pages continue the blending of graphite images that emphasize Halloween-style orange carrots.
Five years after his encounter with creepy carrots, Jasper Rabbit has grown both physically and emotionally. In the clothing department, Jasper needs at the very least new undergarments. His Mom takes him on a shopping trip that includes a stop at the underwear store. She picks up several packages of Plain White underclothing, but Jasper spies a display of trendy underwear that are in a really cool shade of green. His Mom relents and allows Jasper to choose one pair of the neon green underwear. Jasper is not a bunny anymore. He wants to make decisions befitting a big rabbit. He is even going to wear his stylish green underwear to his bedroom as night falls. He believes he is now so grown up that he no longer needs a hallway light left on for him during the dark night hours. However, petrifying things can occur in the middle of the night. Jasper’s cool green underwear glows in the dark – a ghoulish, greenish luminosity. Moreover, the face of the frightening underwear strongly resembles the image of Frankenstein’s monster.
Jasper is not as grown up as he had believed. He buries the creepy green underwear and returns to the safety of Plain White underpants. But safety does not last long. The monster green underwear is bigger and more frightening than ever the next morning. Jasper is both desperate and creative. He hurriedly mails the scary green underwear to China. But the very next morning a return package from China awaits him at the front door. In addition to the return of the dreaded green undergarment are Chinese souvenirs that include chopsticks and a soft toy panda bear. Undaunted, Jasper uses his Mom’s best scissors and buries the pieces he has cut from the ghoulish green underwear which he takes to the countryside and buries as deeply as he can in Creekhanger Hill (very close to Crackenhopper Field of orange carrot fame).
Circumstance can and do change. That same night Jasper tries to be grown up and sleep in a totally dark bedroom. The total blackness is more than he bargained for and the Plain White underclothing do not provide even a sliver of illumination. He goes to great efforts to find the formerly ghastly green light to a soothing and welcoming green glow. Acting like a more mature rabbit, Jasper uses his allowance money to return to the underwear store where he purchases several green underclothing that illuminate his bedroom in the dark of night. The new green underwear is not creepy after all. It helps Jasper transition from being a bunny to a more courageous big rabbit.
Aaron Reynolds’s moral is simple. Growing up can be scary, but every act of courage is rewarded. Never be afraid of the dark. Peter Brown again uses graphite-shaded illustrations with the singular exception of ghoulish green underclothing that glows even in the dark.
Readers initially met Jasper Rabbit when he was an elementary school student with a greedy appetite for carrots and a creepy encounter with menacing orange crayons. Now, a decade later, Jasper has moved on to middle school, but he is failing every subject except art.
Clearly, Jasper needs help and it magically arrives in the form of a crayon that is purple, pointy, and perfect, and dramatically changes Jasper’s classroom academic performance. Using the seemingly friendly purple crayon, Jasper receives an A-plus on a spelling test. The following day he aces a surprise math quiz. Again, the high grade is totally thanks to the efforts of the perfect purple crayon.
Still, all is not well in Jasper’s school and home life as the purple crayon becomes increasingly over-active and more than a little bit frightening. The purple crayon has taken possession of Jasper’s pride and joy, his entry in the school-wide poster contest. The pushy, more dominating purple pointed crayon turns Jasper’s fledgling poster into a purple masterpiece.
Jasper grows more suspicious of the motives of the purple crayon. He wants his old and imperfect student life back. He feels “...eeked out, freaked out, and creeped out!”
Ghoulish circumstances require desperate measures. Jasper first locks the purple crayon away in a box in the basement of his home, but the very next day the purple crayon completes all of Jasper’s school work with A-pluses. Melting the purple crayon in the microwave and tossing the waxed mess in the garbage fails to rid Jasper of his newly but unwanted “friend.” Will a flush of the sinister crayon down the toilet return life to normal for Jasper? It seems to do so. The next school day brings him considerable joy when a C-plus honestly earned brings forth justifiable pride.
The suspicious purple crayon is absented from Jasper’s life, but perhaps not that of others. The purple pointed crayon is ultimately flushed into the sea. Is that the end of his evil ways? Not quite. After floating in the ocean for a very long time, the crayon is washed up on a sandy beach where it is picked up by Elliot Pelican. Yet another creepy tale is about to unfold.
Reynolds infuses the Creepy Crayon! with another life lesson. A C-plus grade earned honestly will always be far, far better that an A-plus grade that is spuriously received.
Peter Brown’s charcoal grey palette yet again allows a sole color – PURPLE – to dominate readers’ continuing story of Jasper’s creepy tales. Cleverly, the illustrator uses visual allusions to Jasper’s two previous adventures with singular appearances of creepy orange and ghoulish green crayons.
Home and School Activities
More Creepy Tales. Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown have cleverly used the colors of orange, green, and purple from the color spectrum, but that leaves more than 149 additional colors from young readers’ Crayola Ultimate Crayon Box of 152 crayons. Ask students to select a favorite color of crayon and create a creepy, yet funny story about the further adventures of Jasper Rabbit. Perhaps Jasper is by now in his first year of high school. A favorite color might be gold. As Jasper explores maturing into a rabbit’s teen years, how does he become engaged in a battle of the imagination with one or more gold crayons?
Creepy Holidays. Encourage young storytellers and illustrators to search their crayon box for colors that suit particular holidays. Red is the color most associated with Valentine’s Day. Continue with Reynolds—Brown theme of creepy crayons and the life story of Jasper Rabbit. However, add a new color to the story and illustrations. How does Jasper explore his world when it is suffused with the color red?
Anthropomorphism and School Colors. Aaron Reynolds has been delightfully clever with the human qualities of a bunny who is becoming a big rabbit and who encounters some very creepy crayon colors along the way. Even elementary schools today have mascots and school colors. Perhaps students’ school colors are yellow and blue, and their mascot is a bear. Encourage students to imagine the unique human-like behaviors and language of a bear cub or adult. What creepy adventures may await the school bear who lives in a world where yellow and blue crayons play special roles?
Reynolds, Aaron. Jasper Rabbit's Creepy Tales! (Boxed Set): Creepy Carrots!; Creepy Pair of Underwear!; Creepy Crayon! Illus. by Peter Brown. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022.
