Megabat - Hardcover

Humphrey, Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0735262578 ISBN 13: 9780735262577

Publisher: Tundra Books, 2018

Synopsis

★ An Amazon Best Children's Book of the Year selection

A sweet and hilarious chapter book about a boy and a bat, two unlikely friends who bond over loneliness, jellyrolls and Darth Vader.

Daniel Misumi has just moved to a new house. It's big and old and far away from his friends and his life before. AND it's haunted . . . or is it?

Megabat was just napping on a papaya one day when he was stuffed in a box and shipped halfway across the world. Now he's living in an old house far from home, feeling sorry for himself and accidentally scaring the people who live there.

Daniel realizes it's not a ghost in his new house. It's a bat. And he can talk. And he's actually kind of cute.

Megabat realizes that not every human wants to whack him with a broom. This one shares his smooshfruit.

Add some buttermelon, juice boxes, a lightsaber and a common enemy and you've got a new friendship in the making!

This charming, funny story is brought to life by Kass Reich's warm and adorable illustrations. There's never been a bat this cute -- readers will be rooting for Megabat and Daniel from page one!

About this title

About the Author

ANNA HUMPHREY has worked as a marketing person for a poetry organization, in communications for the Girl Guides of Canada, as an editor for a web-zine, an intern at a decorating magazine and for the government. None of those was quite right, so she started her own freelance writing and editing business on top of writing for kids and teens. She has been published by Disney Hyperion, Simon & Schuster and HarperTeen, and recently kicked off her Clara Humble series with Owlkids to great acclaim. She lives in a big, old brick house in Kitchener, Ontario, with her husband and two kids and no bats. Yet.

KASS REICH was born in Montreal, Quebec. She works as an artist and educator and has spent a majority of the last decade traveling and living abroad. Kass graduated with a degree in art education from Concordia University and then picked up and moved to Beijing where she worked as an early childhood educator for nearly three years. After Beijing she lived in Hong Kong, London, England and Melbourne, Australia. She now finds herself back in Canada, but this time in Toronto. Kass loves creating books for all ages, like Carson Crosses Canada and Hamsters Holding Hands. This is her first book about a bat.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Daniel Misumi hated his new house. He hated the vines that crept up the redbrick and the way the peaks over the upstairs windows looked like angry eyebrows. He hated the creaky floors and the weird wallpaper... but most of all, he hated his new attic bedroom—especially when he discovered a ghostly creature was living there.
Daniel’s first clue about the creature was the mysterious puddle at the top of the stairs.
“Oof!” he said, landing on his bum. It was moving day, and he’d been carrying a box of Lego. Pieces crashed to the floor and skittered under the furniture like beetles afraid of the light.
Daniel stood up and examined his wet shorts. “Mom!” he called. “There’s a puddle on my floor!”
Daniel found his mom in the bathroom. She was busy unpacking her bottles of relaxing bubble bath. “Just what we need.” She sighed. “A leak in the roof on our first day.”
Daniel’s father was summoned. He made grim faces at the ceiling and said things like “Welllllll...” and “Let’s see...” but no hole or crack was discovered.
“Maybe it’s not water,” Daniel said as they mopped up the puddle. “It could be corrosive liquid leaking from a rusty pipe.” In such an old house, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
Daniel eyed the ceiling suspiciously, but his dad just said they’d deal with it later.
So Daniel tried to put the puddle out of his mind, but later that night, when he was drifting off to sleep...
“Gots buttermelons? Hmmm?”
His eyes shot open.
“Buttermelons? Nope? None?”
The voice was small and quivering, and if he hadn’t been so terrified, Daniel might have noticed how filled with sadness it was.
He pulled the blankets over his head. At first it seemed to work. The room stayed silent for a long time. So long that Daniel almost convinced himself he’d imagined the whole thing.
“Buttermelons? Peeze! None? Nooooooooo.”
The voice came again, even more quivery than before. Plus, now there was a strange flapping sound.
Daniel sat up, turned on the bedside light and raised his arms in a fierce karate move. He looked around the room.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tundra Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0735262578
• ISBN 13: 9780735262577
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192
• Illustrator: Reich Kass