I actually thought this was a really neat children's book - but I'm a bit biased because I saw Evangeline read it out loud. She had this quirky music playing that added to the whole experience (apparently the audio book also has the same music). She said that she is planning on writing adult novels too, which I'm very excited about. Stoked to read more of her work in the future!

Also, there were a bunch of kids at the reading, and they did NOT find it too creepy or dark. They seemed to enjoy it, and asked a bunch of questions at the end :)

The Squickerwonkers isn't something I'd normally pick up and it only really came onto my radar after reading interviews with the author Evangeline Lilly (of Lost and Hobbit fame). I found myself interested in some of the things she was talking about and wanted to check out her writing, but still unsure about picking up a "children's book", especially when I never realised how expensive these sort of books are.

And then I saw the audiobook – narrated by Sylvester McCoy (of classic Doctor Who fame) – was available free on Audible, and thought I'd try it anyway.

Overall, the story is good and tight, perhaps a bit darker than what we'd normally expect to have been written for children. Not being someone who has much contact with children should mean my opinion of whether it's "too dark" for children or not should be taken with at least a grain of salt, but perhaps an entire salt shaker is more appropriate. That said, I don't think it's darker than say, Alice in Wonderland.

I believe Evangeline Lilly intends The Squickerwonkers to be the first of an 18-volume series, all focusing a different "squickerwonker". This, being the first volume, feels more like a teaser-slash-introduction to the world. I don't think it's necessarily a mistake that the first book is about setting up and introducing the world and the beings that populate it, but for someone who likes to a lot of meat in her reading material, I felt I'd had been given an appetiser and then told I'd get the entrée next year.

So I do wonder if the series would be better served if all 18 stories had been written and then published collectively in the one volume. Of course, this would likely mean that instead of 18 books all with sumptuous, full-colour illustrations (not available in audiobooks, alas), you'd get one book with a couple of black-and-white illustrations for each of the 18 stories. But at least you'd feel like you'd gotten the full story.

Or maybe that's just more appealing to my sensibilities as a reader. I just wanted to know more about this world and it was a little frustrating that there wasn't more to read.

Sylvester McCoy's narration is fantastic and suits the style of Lilly's book to a T. It's engaging and a little creepy and a little twisted. The various characters he voices all sound unique and are quite simply a joy to listen to and be amused by. The production behind the audiobook is lavish and again well-suited to the style. However, I found it a little distracting and found that sometimes I'd be listening to the sound instead of the words and that I was missing chunks of the story.

Overall, I found The Squickerwonkers to be a decent enough story – I enjoyed the brief glimpse of the world Lilly gave us and would definitely have a look at future instalments. I'm not convinced it's really my favourite thing to read, but it is interesting and this first book definitely whets the appetite for more.