The Scariest Story You’ve Ever Heard is a 2022 picture book written by Ron Keres and designed by Arthur Lin.
That use of “designed” rather than, say, “illustrated” is intentional, and comes from the book itself. It fits, because much of the book is words only, usually all in white, but sometimes in other colors. These words differ (a lot) in size and presentation, and slide into illustration or special effect. For example, in the line phrase “thunder was BOOMING,” “booming” is longer and in all caps. The letters have crosshatching, and there are lines (mostly straight, some jagged) emanating out from the word, like lightning around a thunder cloud. The word “POUR” seems to be leaking rain, and so on.
The story is straightforward: one night, power goes out just before midnight. The boys who live there wake up. They hear sounds in the darkness and get scared. They hide when hear something coming closer, but then it goes away. They hear other sounds, some scary, some confusing, and realize there is an intruder in their kitchen. They speculate about what’s going on, then go to investigate. As they do, they hear other sounds, some of them eating-related. When they enter the kitchen they find…their dad. Eating ice cream. (Two pages follow this big reveal, giving essentially a glossary/explanation of all the sounds they heard, with thumbnail illustrations.)
So, simple story, but first rate delivery. The book builds suspense, drawing out events so they seem to take a long time. This cries out to be read aloud, with pauses, pages held up for kid readers, and lots of interactivity.
Good fun.
