Wow, I was not expecting to love this so much based on how I felt in those first twenty pages or so, but it really won me over. If I'd discovered this when I was a kid, it would have 1) scared the crap out of me, 2) become my most favorite book ever. It's quite bloody, yes, but also delightfully irreverent. The humor is balanced so perfectly, not just for the kids but for the adults reading aloud, and it's incorporated well to ramp up anticipation, too. This is essentially comedy-horror for middle grade, using Grimm's tales as a base. (Many of those were horror in the first place, right?)