I don’t know how many people are reading Kirk Scroggs’s Wiley & Grampa’s Creature Features series. I’m telling everyone about them and no one else seems to have heard of them. But more people need to be reading these books. Or at least corrupting the minds of elementary kids with them!

With the publication of the latest, Curse of the Kitty Litter, the series is now nine books long. Each tale is chock full of humor, twists on the supernatural or weird science, short chapters (ideal for reluctant readers), and art (ideal for emerging young artists).

I love these books. My son and I discovered them a few years ago. Though we’re both too old for them according to the targeted market, we howl with glee as the author ropes us into another twisted adventure with Wiley, Grampa, Gramma, and loveable pet cat Merle.

In addition to the graphic whackiness throughout, the author also busts zingers and provides additional laughs for the adults indulging in pre-adolescence with their kids. Scroggs has a growing cast of characters and manages to showcase each of them in every adventure.

Curse of the Kitty Litter starts off with inane hilarity and proceeds to lambast the hoariest of pulp plot shticks, the character’s inheritance of wealth from an unknown and distant relative. There’s also the “you must stay in the haunted house all night to get the inheritance” clause guaranteed to deliver bloodshed in slasher films and goofiness in comedies like Wiley and Grampa.

I think I would have enjoyed a book solely about the efforts our heroes made to spend the night in Badtable Manor. Scroggs is good enough to pull that off, in my opinion. But I think he’s tapped into the pulse of his reading public because he moves the story along so that part – as hilarious and weird as it is – passes in a few short pages. Barry Dunderdirt the ghostly gravedigger and the possessed clowns were great. And the mayonnaise ghost was totally unexpected. I loved the way Merle was lured from the mansion because it was so simple.

The story of Mr. Spittles, the prize family cat that passed on years ago, was interesting and I knew from reading Scroggs’s past work that he wasn’t through using that particular angle. One of the things I like best about this series is that the author knows how to set up things he keeps returning to for bigger and bigger laughs. Mr. Spittles’s story doesn’t emerge all at once, and the tale is even better for that. Scroggs has great timing for dropping the other shoe. Or, in the case of the Curse of the Kitty Litter, dropping the next load of bad news!

The deliberate linking of the cat show judge Simon Yowl to American Idol’s Simon Cowl is a hoot. It might be something the younger readers won’t get, but it’s one of those things Scroggs sticks in for his adult fans that pick the books up and read them when no one’s looking.

This book just hit the shelves so you should be able to find it. You don’t need to have read the others. Simply pick it up, leaf through it, and see if something catches your eye. I’m betting something will. Then you’ll go back and try to get the other books in the series and eagerly look forward to the new ones. Just like my son and I do.