Book review: Gris Grimly's wicked nursery rhymes

Gris Grimly is an artist and story teller whose style is dipped deeply in some hot horror sauce! Well known for his macabre slant on traditional children’s fairy tales, Mr Grimly has also tried his hand at short movies including “cannibal flesh riot” (2006) and music video’s. It was recently announced that no less than Guillermo del Toro will be co-directing a stop motion adaption of one of Gris Grimly’s first books “Pinocchio” with Gris serving as an executive director.

The book i am covering here today is called “Gris Grimly’s wicked nursery rhymes” which was published in 2003 by baby tattoo books (ISBN 0-9729388-7-7). My copy is a hardback that features a wonderfully illustrated sleeve by the man Gris Grimly himself. Behind the sleeve on the actual book cover is an engraving style motif of a witch atop her broomstick! The back cover features a wonderful recommendation from no less than Clive Barker himself, the words of which you can see in the first image below.

Hardcover front for "Wicked nursery rhymes"

Wicked nursery rhymes is a fairly short book but it does manage to pack in 8 different nursery rhymes that have been brought back to life by the mad artistic scientist that is Mr Grimly and just as is always the case with such diabolical experiments, these tales have returned far darker and twisted than their original twee selves! 

Grim Grimly's Wicked nursery rhyme outer inlay

The eight stories included are:

Father Grim

Miss Muffet

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Jack and Jill

Mistress Mary

Jumping Joan

Little Bo Peep

Nimble Jack

Every page features one or more illustrations from Gris, and they are simply spooktacular!
They just scream with character, and whilst cute retain a proper edginess and folksy feel that is lacking in much of the chibi kawaii type horror art that is fashionable at the moment. Many of the plates within the book would make excellent prints in themselves. I have included some of my favorite examples below:

"Fuzzy wuzzy" by Gris Grimly

"Jumping Joan" by Gris Grimly

"Miss Muffet" by Gris Grimly

All but the youngest of readers will finish the book within 10 minutes without pausing to admire the artwork considering that the book is only 32 pages long from start to finish. None the less packed within those 32 pages is an incredibly rich dark humor that will often produce an evil chuckle in the reader. The book manages easily to walk that very thin tightrope of being dark and dirty enough to appeal to adults whilst being silly and fantastical enough to appeal to young children. This is definitely a book you will regularly come back to and read with your sprogs again and again. My favourite story in the book is called "fuzzy wuzzy" which i include here to give you an idea of the twisted and humorous writing style:

"A poor wretched bear was named Fuzzy.

Still the question remains, but was he?

Born with no hair.

He was oddly bare,

and a little bit stinky and scuzzy"

Fuzzy Wuzzy - By Gris Grimly from "Wicked Nursery Rhymes"

Gris Grimly is a helluva artist and once you know his style you will recognize it anywhere! If one were to be hyper critical you could say his writing whilst good is not on the same par as his artwork, but none the less as a whole package gris grimly’s wicked nursery rhymes is a book well worth owning and i highly recommend it to horror fans and monster mates both young and old!