We've moved to a new neighborhood.
Mom says the change will do us good.

I have no friends now, living near.
I hope I make some new friends here.

Behind our home a strange house stands,
Like a castle in a foreign land.

I wonder who lives on the hill;
To look at it gives me a chill.


It wasn't very long at all
Till my new neighbors came to call.

They must have come to our front door
To leave the note there on the floor.

I saw the hand that brought the mail.
I caught a glimpse of greenish scale.

Perhaps that hand was just a joke.
If not, our neighbors are strange folk.


I heard footsteps that shook the floor
And...

Madame Pestilence expected her students at the Academy for Young Goblins and Witches to scowl at all time. It was one of the many rules that Gloria had trouble remembering.
Every time Madame Pestilence spotted Gloria passing her office, she would hollar, “STOP SMILING!”

It was easy to scowl at dinnertime because the same awful creamed cockroach casserole was served every night. It made all of the students sick.
“Stop complaining!” Madame Pestilence would snarl. “This diet will turn you into wicked witches and goblins—as mean as your headmistress.”

One evening at midnight the students...

One night Little Toot had a dream. He dreamed he saw an enormous monster with large, bulging eyes and green scales. "It even had flippers and wings," he told the other riverboats.
"There are no monsters!" the riverboats jeered. All but Grandfather Toot. "I have heard of one fierce, awful monster," he said. "It lives in a lake called Loch Ness, far across the sea in Scotland. Go and find out for yourself," he told Little Toot.
"A waste of time," the riverboats said.

It seemed a long, long way to go, but Little Toot was determined to find the monster.
So, hiding his fears, the small tugboat bravely...

Patrick and his brother, Hank, went to the zoo on Saturday. They stood outside a tall fence and watched the elephants.
"I'll bet that elephant is the biggest animal in the whole world," said Patrick.
"You think he's big," Hank said. "A brontosaurus was heavier than TEN elephants."


"Gosh!" said Patrick. If Hank said so, it must be true. Hank knew all about dinosaurs. He knew more about everything because he was older and went to school already.
Patick squeezed his eyes half shut. What would a dinosaur that weighed as much as ten elephants look like? The brontosaurus he imagined turned and looked...

William Everett Crocodile lived on the banks of the River Nile with his mama.
One day Mama said, "William Everett, now that you have nice crocodile teeth, we must go to Mr. Hippo's store and get you a toothbrush before you start school tomorrow."


William Everett liked Mr. Hippo's store because it was full of things. He and Mama walked up one aisle and down another.
They stopped in front of the toothbrush counter. "You may choose your own toothbrush, William Everett," Mama said.
William Everett looked and looked.

"Hi!" said a toothbrush. "What's your name?"
"My name's William Everett. What's yours?"...

There used to be an alligator under my bed.

When it was time to go to sleep, I had to be very careful

because I knew he was there.

But whenever I looked, he hid...or something.

So I'd call Mom and Dad.

But they never saw it.

It was up to me.
I just had to do something about that alligator.

So I went to the kitchen to get some alligator bait.

I filled a paper bag full of things alligators like to eat.

I put a peanut butter sandwich, some fruit and the last piece of pie in the garage.

I put cookies down the hall.

I left fresh vegetables on the stairs.

I put soda and some candy next to my bed.
Then I watched...

There was once a very unbeautiful, very rocky, rotten island. It had acres of sharp gravel and volcanoes that belched fire and smoke, spewed hot lava, and spat poison arrows and double-headed toads.


The spiny, thorny, twisted plants that grew there had never a flower of any kind.
There was an earthquake an hour, black tornadoes, lightning sprees with racking thunder, squalls, cyclones, and dust storms.

At night it froze; all the living things stopped moving and turned to ice. But the volcanoes kept exploding, and the lightest breeze was a hurricane. At sunrise everything thawed out and moved again....

Horace P. Blumpoe was a grump. Everyone in his neighborhood thought so. They all called him Blumpoe the Grumpoe.


"Wanda Huggins, I'm going to report you!" he growled at the paper girl whenever his newspaper didn't land exactly in the middle of his front porch.

"You dented my can!" he yelled at Norman the garbage man.

"I expect my mail at three o'clock sharp!" he fussed at Roger, the postman.

Almost everyone knew better than to ring his doorbell on Halloween.


The only things Horace P. Blumpoe wasn't grumpy about were his sister, Edith, whom he visited every year in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and his...