Night of the Reading Dead
Bryce Craps
North Street Book Prize 2025 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Children's Picture Book
Critiqu
e by Jendi Reiter
How can one kid fend off a horde of (small and oddly adorable) zombies? The answer, of course, is brains…but not in the expected way. That's the endearing premise of Night of the Reading Dead by Bryce Craps, illustrated by Manurro.
This book had the most kid-pleasing spirit of our shortlisted entries. The action-packed opener and shadowy yet cute anime-style illustrations strike the right balance between goofy and scary. Underneath the absurd humor, there's a meaningful message about nonviolent problem-solving and the power of literacy. But kids won't perceive it as preachy because the values emerge through action rather than exposition.
Pursued by zombies, for reasons we never learn or need to care about, young Henry takes refuge in an abandoned house. When he's cornered in the attic, the only object he can grab to fend them off is a book. The creatures' rage gives way to curiosity about the unfamiliar shapes on the pages. The zombies want to learn to read! Compassionate Henry becomes their tutor, and the former adversaries become friends.
Not everyone is open to being transformed by education, but more often than we realize, bridges can be built. We have to remain open to seeing opponents as people with needs and fears like our own. In that way, Night of the Reading Dead reminded me of the Buddhist picture books we read to my son when he was little.
The hardcover book was sturdy with a bright and glossy cover. The interior layout was spare, with plain black text on a white page facing each illustration. It made sense not to interrupt the action in the pictures, but perhaps more could have been done to add visual interest to the text pages. As with many picture books that attempt rhyme and meter, some lines were clunky. The text had the sound of four-line AABB stanzas, but was formatted as prose paragraphs. Formatting the text as poetry stanzas with line breaks might have been a better choice.
Night of the Reading Dead would be a great gift book for your kid or their classroom teacher at Halloween.
Read an excerpt from Night of the Reading Dead (PDF)
Buy this book on Amazon.
