I picked up Troubling Tonsils! on a rainy afternoon when my own throat felt scratchy. Maybe that was a mistake. The book sat on my coffee table, and my six-year-old nephew spotted it immediately. “Is this scary?” he asked, eyes wide. I wasn’t sure how to answer.
The book is by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown, the team behind those wildly popular Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear picture books. This one is different. It’s a chapter book, their first in a new spin-off series called Jasper Rabbit’s Creepy Tales. Jasper himself narrates, looking like a bunny version of Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone. He tells us the story of Charlie Marmot, a young marmot whose infected tonsils need to come out.
Simple enough, right?
Charlie decides he wants to keep his tonsils in a jar for show and tell. That’s where things get weird. Strange slurping sounds keep him awake. When he goes to the doctor, the tonsils are already gone. The question becomes: where did they go, and are they coming back for revenge?
The Balancing Act That Doesn’t Quite Land
What struck me most was the balancing act this book attempts. It wants to be creepy without being truly scary. It wants to be a chapter book for kids transitioning from picture books, but the vocabulary feels a bit advanced in places. I read it aloud to my nephew and found myself stumbling over phrases that felt more suited to a middle-grade novel than a beginning chapter book.
The illustrations are fantastic. Peter Brown’s black and white drawings carry the same energy as the original picture books. The marmot looks adorable even when he’s terrified. The slime trails across the page are gross in exactly the way kids love. But the text itself felt stretched. What could have been a tight, 32-page picture book became a 100-plus page chapter book, and the pacing suffered.
I’ll be honest. My nephew zoned out around chapter two. He wanted the quick punch of the picture books. He wanted the immediate payoff. The longer form didn’t hold his attention the way Creepy Carrots did.
Gross, Unsettling, and Genuinely Clever
The core theme here is about losing something we think we need. Tonsils, we learn, are part of our immune system, but we can live without them. Charlie’s fear of losing them becomes literal when they disappear on their own. There’s a metaphor in there about childhood anxieties and medical procedures. The author includes an actual explanation of what tonsils do, which is nice for curious kids.
But the key imagery that stayed with me was the slime. It appears in Charlie’s room, on his pillow, everywhere. It’s gross. It’s unsettling. It’s the physical manifestation of his fear. And when the twist comes at the end, the slime takes on a new meaning. I won’t spoil it, but it’s genuinely clever. The ending lands with a Twilight Zone kind of satisfaction that made me grin.
The book has problems. The writing is overly wordy in places. One reviewer mentioned removing a third of the text, and I understand that impulse. The charm and humor that made the earlier books so beloved feel diluted here. It’s not a bad book. It’s just not as sharp as what came before.
Who Should Read This Book
Who should read this? Kids who are nervous about getting their tonsils out. Kids who love creepy but not too scary stories. Kids who grew up with Jasper Rabbit and want something slightly older. Who should skip it? Kids who want the fast, punchy humor of the picture books. Kids who get bored easily with longer texts.
What I took away was a reminder that growing up is hard. The things that scared us as little kids become different things as we get older. The picture books were about being afraid of vegetables and underwear. This one is about being afraid of surgery and losing parts of yourself. It’s a step forward, even if it’s an uneven one.
The book won’t replace the magic of Creepy Carrots. But it might help a child who’s scared of the doctor’s office feel slightly less alone in moments of fear.
The question I keep coming back to is this: can a series make the leap from picture books to chapter books without losing what made it special?
