Zena the Zombie is the perfect gift for youngsters on a post-Halloween high or just looking for some spooky fun throughout the year. The book is for reading, colouring and puzzle solving as we follow Zena on a search for the bits and pieces that together make up her best friend. There are lots of child-friendly stories about young Draculas, but Zena is the first teen zombie character that we’ve encountered on the printed page or indeed in life. The book provides excellent colouring opportunities. Often character-based colouring books are cursed with a repetitive colour scheme, but Howe and Stone’s script and illustrator Martin Baines’ pictures provide a wide variety of characters and settings including the gloriously ghastly scientist Doctor Slew and the cadaverous car mechanic Mr D’Eath, who looks like a crazed take on Moby Dick‘s Captain Ahab. Favourite settings include the tunnel of worms and the watery home of the many tentacled Fintan.
The text, in rhyming couplets, jollies the story along with rhymes such as “Back in the house, things get hairy, Uncle Faloon is kinda scary. He’s in the thrall of the full moon. He’ll become a wolf sometime soon!”
Sam Stone is a well known author of gothic, horror and fantasy. David Howe is widely recognised in the world of Doctor Who and fantasy fandom and an author of numerous reference books. The pair work well as a team so treat your kids – or even yourself – to a copy of Zena the Zombie and a guaranteed wail of a time!
Zena the Zombie is available from www.telos.co.uk
ZENA THE ZOMBIE / AUTHOR: DAVID J HOWE, SAM STONE / ILLUSTRATOR: MARTIN BAINES / PUBLISHER: TELOS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
