134. Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk by Megan McDonald illustrated by Peter Reynolds

Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk by Megan McDonald illustrated by Peter Reynolds
Published May 2012 Candlewick Press


From the publisher:
Reading is UNdead - and everyone has zombies on the brain - as Stink's school and a local bookstore cook up a frightfully fun Main Street event.


It might not be obvious by the title, or the cover for that matter, but this is a great book for the National Year of Reading...it's a book about books.



Stink and his friend Webster are desperately waiting for the release of the new book in their favourite series, Nightmare on Zombie Street.  Not only is the new book coming out, but the local book shop is having a midnight (10pm) zombie walk on the night of the books'  release.  The tiny hitch, is that the books cost $12.99 and Stink and Webster don't have enough money.  The pair try all sorts of things to raise the money, including selling 'smells'.  They start with nice smells like cinnamon and pine cones, but nobody is interested...when they change the names to Zombie Farts and Zombie BO...people actually pay money to smell them!


Everyone at school is excited about the new book coming out and they even have a zombie day at school, where the lunch consists of 'scrambled brains with a side of guts' or 'eyeball soup', and the Year 2s and 3s read to the kindy kids, who are all dressed like zombies.  Stink reads 'The Very Hungry Zombie Caterpillar' which is just like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, only he threw in the word zombie a lot!

This book has plenty of funny and disgusting aspects to it, so boys will love it, but it's also about reading.  At Stink's school they are all working together to read a total of one million minutes.  Everyone records how long they read for and when the one million minute is reached, BOB (big orange box) gets opened...and inside BOB is a big surprise, including a gift for the school that has been donated by the local community.

It's a book where the characters are excited about books and reading, so you can't really go wrong with this one.  There are also little 'fun pages' thrown in between each chapter, like '10 ways to tell if your sister is a Zombie'. 

Who will like this book: Boys age 8+
Read it if you like: Stink