#201 of 1001 · February 17, 2021

I can hardly believe I’ve reached my two-hundredth book review! Many thanks for your likes, follows, and kind comments. You make it all worthwhile! Today’s book is a special one: Precious and the Boo Hag, written by Patricia C. McKissack and Onawumi Jean Moss and illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. Precious, afflicted with a stomachache, stays home while her family heads out to harvest crops. Before leaving, her brother warns her of Pruella the Boo Hag, a shapeshifting ogress who haunts the prairies. Sure enough, once Precious is alone, the wicked creature appears and attempts—through a combination of intimidation, guile, and deceit—to gain entry into her house. The clever girl must keep her wits about her and defend her home against incursion. This book possesses an inexplicable allure. Simply put, children love it. They adore the potent mix of humor and danger as a series of visitors proves one by one to be the Boo Hag in disguise. McKissack and Moss know when to play up the fear—leaving to the imagination Pruella’s sinister motives for coming inside, heightening the paranoia of familiar faces acting as untrustworthy masks—and when to snap the tension as Precious accosts and banishes the hag with a raucously chanted refrain. Brooker’s mixed-media art, with collages of natural textures and expressionistic character design, strikes a perfect middle ground between funny and scary. A note for folklore enthusiasts: the figure of the boo hag originates in the Gullah culture of the southeastern United States. This book has considerably toned down her bizarre and disturbing traditional appearance, as the folkloric boo hag climbs astride her victims at night, sucks out their breath, and strips them of their skin to cover the raw, red flesh of her body. #precious #boo #hag #shapeshifter #disguise #evil #magic #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks