Boris and Bella

From the Publisher

"Young readers will delight in the ghoulish details . . . A bewitching choice."—School Library Journal
"Devilishly clever."—FamilyFun Magazine

Publishers Weekly

The diametrically different Bella Legrossi and Boris Kleanitoff find love on the dance floor of Harry Beastie's ultimate Halloween bash. PW wrote, "Crimi's corpse-fresh text and Grimly's fiendish visual details make an equally pleasing pair." Ages 4-7. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

Two very different characters star in a love story particularly appropriate for Halloween but fun any time. Bella Legrossi, "the messiest monster in Booville," lives alone because no one can stand her chaotic household. Her complete opposite, Boris Kleanitoff, also lives alone because no one can stand his fussy cleanliness. As neighbors they argue constantly. One Halloween, when Bella decides to have a party, she invites everyone but Boris. So Boris plans his own party, without Bella. But no one will attend either party. They all want to go to Harry Beastie's party, since his place is clean but he is not persnickety about it. Bella and Boris still manage to find their happy ending amid a swirling party and a multitude of puns and great fun. Although the linguistic inventiveness is sure to create smiles, more profound humor is generated by the colored ink and watercolor drawings, which provide the details of our protagonists' lives. Even Halloween clichés like gauze-wrapped mummies and peripatetic bats are given fresh twists. There is a pacing to the sequence of illustrations that produces a cinematic quality emphasizing the oddly human undertones to this superficially ghoulish tale. 2004, Harcourt, Ages 4 to 8.
—Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

School Library Journal

Gr 1-4-Boris Kleanitoff is terrifyingly tidy while Bella Lagrossi is monstrously messy. These neighbors don't get along until a Halloween dance brings them together. The story of this monster romance is predictable, but told with tongue-tickling prose. The description of the party is characteristically spunky, as "Cy Clops bebopped and the Fang flip-flopped. The Boogeyman boogied while the trolls twirled round." Grimly's illustrations, which are similar to those in Marilyn Singer's Monster Museum (Hyperion, 2001), perfectly complement the text. The characters are creatively drawn with ink and watercolor in subdued hues. Young readers will delight in the ghoulish details like the "Pizza Glut" box in Bella's house and the shrunken heads by the punch bowl at the shindig. This is a bewitching choice for libraries looking to boost their Halloween offerings.-Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Two monsters with very different habits find common ground in this boo-tiful friendship tale. So obsessively neat is Boris Kleanitoff, and such a world class slob is his neighbor Bella Legrossi, that all the other creatures in town decline invitations to their rival Halloween parties in favor of a looser but not so disgusting shindig at Hairy Beastie's. Furiously stomping off to give Hairy what-for, the two reluctantly join the wild dance instead-and discover that together, they can really cut the rug. Readers who find the ghouls and behavior in Adam Stower's similarly themed Two Left Feet (p. 638) a bit too sweet may go for this edgier rendition, with its cuisine that includes maggot muffins and chocolate-covered gargoyle boils, and its spiky Addams Family-style illustrations. (Picture book. 7-9)