My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast by Zoje Stage & J E Larson

I missed the initial surge of excitement around Zoje Stage’s bestselling debut novel Baby Teeth, but was more than happy to take on the sequel, Dear Hanna, for the day job. In the latter novel, Hanna has grown up and gotten married to an older man with a teenage daughter. This pleases her: she doesn’t have any interest in having kids herself, so she’s glad to have found a mostly loving, supportive husband who’s on the same page as she is. An unexpected pregnancy, however, sets off a chain reaction of events that could have Hanna reverting to her old psychopathic ways.

I came out of that book with a huge amount of sympathy for Hanna, and an absolute loathing of her mother. But it also made me very much want to read more of Ms Stage’s work, especially this children’s book referenced in its pages. My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast is a book much loved by young Hanna and her little brother Goose, to the point where they made little UnderSlumberBumbleBeasts of their own. Now Ms Stage has partnered with illustrator J E Larson to bring that tome from fiction to reality.

My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast is the tale of Pru, an inventive young girl who doesn’t like to clean her room. When her Mumbley insists that she cleans up regardless, Pru shoves a bunch of stuff under her bed, little knowing what will result. For the noises that she’s been hearing at night from below her aren’t just from the house settling, as Mumbley and Papier (her very cute names for her parents) insist. She’ll soon find out that something actually is living under her bed, something for which she’s very much responsible.

As this is a children’s book, it is not, I repeat, not a scary novel like the rest of Ms Stage’s fiction has been so far. It’s actually a very cute, offbeat chapter book that’s appropriate for kids, tho it still does convey a frisson of suspense from Pru peering into dark spaces for the things that go bump in the night. It’s still wholly age-appropriate, especially with the glossary of potentially tricky words included in the back for younger readers by the word-loving and -collecting Pru.

The illustrations do tend more Charles Addams and Edward Gorey than the average picture book does. The cover telegraphs this clearly tho, so there shouldn’t be any surprises for the reader unaware of the book’s origins. If anything, it’s fans of Ms Stage who might be surprised at how mild the contents are. While Pru does start the book by complaining about her mother, it’s clear that Mumbley and Papier are good parents and human beings — little wonder that Hanna loved this book so much. It’s also very easy to see how this book inspired Hanna to make her own UnderSlumberBumbleBeast, even tho that would eventually lead to tragedy.

While this is a fascinating work that fleshes out the Hanna Universe, it’s also a solid piece of entertainment that can be enjoyed independently of its older counterparts. It’s also a delightfully sneaky way to get kids who love this — and there will be many, I’m sure! — to graduate to reading its author’s adult novels when the time is right.

My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast by Zoje Stage & J E Larson was published December 3 2024 by Bad Hand Booka and is available from all good booksellers, including