Otilla has run away. She is running through the woods and it’s getting dark. When she comes to the edge of the woods she discovers an old house. It doesn’t look like anyone is home, but she still knocks. From a window up high appears a skull. He’s a very friendly cranium, inviting her in to look around. He shows her the kitchen where she gives him tea, tipping it into his mouth, as it sploshes onto the chair. Lovely he says. They go up to the top floor to see the view. Be careful you don’t fall. It’s a long way down. They go down to the basement where he shows her a big hole, a bottomless pit. They look in a room with masks and decide to wear them looking silly.
They become friends as they travel around the house and Skull offers for Otilla to stay the night. She agrees. But, he warns, there is a headless skeleton that appears every night and he chases me. I can’t let him catch me. They climb into bed and smile; they are both tucked in.
As skull predicted, in the middle of the night the skeleton appears, ‘Give me the skull!’
The Skull a retelling of an old Tyrolean folktale which Klassen has morphed into his own telling. It’s creepy. No other word for it, with Klassen’s illustrations making it feel even darker. I warmed to skull, and Otilla is sweet but, when faced with saving skull, she turns the table on the reader. This book surprised me, as to not only what happened to the skeleton, but how I couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. Vintage Klassen.
Reviewed by Rowena Morcom
Age Guide 6+
