TONIGHT IS KRAMPUS NIGHT!
KYLE SULLIVAN (illus. Zoe Persico)
Hazy Dell Press (
non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 hardcover, $9.99 ebook, preorder now for shipment 7 October 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Better watch out! Something delightfully dreadful lurks in the shadows cast by holiday lights.
From Alpine Austrian and German folklore, Krampusnacht (Krampus Night) is when the Krampus—a horned and hooved Yuletide beast—clomps door-to-door to carry away naughty children in his basket. In this beautifully illustrated ode to old European holiday tradition, a little boy named Felix awaits a visit from the Krampus and a festively frightful cast of characters from folklore, including the Yule Cat, Marley’s Ghost, Mari Lwyd, and Frau Perchta.
Includes a glossary of winter folklore characters.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: How German...no unalloyed happiness allowed! you must always feel the hot breath of some kind of Devil or you're at risk of disorderly behavior!...that is Verboten:
...but honestly, to my materialist soul, there's nothing quite so silly-cute as a dude with ram's horns on his head running around being all scary. I get a huge laugh out of it.
Wagnerian presentation and all, isn't he just the cutest?
The ghosties and the ghoulies are cute, too. I love the daffiness of mis-syncretized myths like this. Imagine believing in christian mythology of love and peace and all that...then scaring your kids into submission with these threats of abduction and damnation. The essence of the christian message is honored more in its breach than its observance, of course, and always has been, but threatening children into anxiety for the rest of their lives
in celebration of your savior's birthday?
In what world does that make sense?
The one with this horny fellow, I guess. So I'm not buying the structure of the system, obviously, but I really like the iconography of goat-guy running around on his special night; and the art in this version of the myth is effective at being scary without being nightmare fuel, defanging the worst excesses of he mythmaking Alpine storytellers.
Beautiful, eerie artwork, yet not full of ghastly images; the text has a rhythmic, flowing quality that both lulls and gives shape to a story that's not quite as threatening as, say Brom's version of it for older readers. The familiar kid-world cadence of the text is perfect to read aloud in a soothing or at least not overstimulating voice.
There's a storyline that does present a good message in here, one that uses the myth to good effect. I think it's a lovely object, one I think would please your budding horror fiend without traumatizing them or siblings also being read to.
Plus I think even the lap-reading set would enjoy getting the book off the shelf to do some patter-matching with the endsheets.
Your grands will enjoy the time you spend half-scaring them with this story.
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