What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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Bad Habits
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. Children's Picture book about bad children who slowly turn into monsters, centered around one girl. Read around 2008. Spoilers ahead. [s]
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The book was fairly long for a picture book, but was definitely a picture book.
I found it! Turns out it's Bad Habits!, Or, the Taming of Lucretzia Crum by Babette Cole. I misremembered a lot of plot details, but the imagery is specific enough that this has to be the book. Bad Habits!, Or, the Taming of Lucretzia Crum
Awesome, glad you found it!Thanks for the update. :)
Around 2008-ish, when I was around kindergarten age, a parent read me a book checked out from the library (or at least read me part of it). The story revolved around an extremely naughty girl who slowly turned into a horrible monster (I don't remember the shape of the monsters, only that they were vaguely reptilian as opposed to mammalian I think), a transformation mirrored by many other similar children throughout the world (or maybe just her classmates, which could feel like the world to a little kid). The main drama of the story focused around this girl and her family, but other children turning into monsters became a part of it. At some point she was given ice cream with a snake in it by a boy (I mean an ice-cream cone with a snake literally sticking its head out of the top, not ice cream with a snake hidden in it), either as revenge or as some kind of initiation ritual (ie, she had "won it" in a twisted way). I don't know what the relationship was here: maybe he was a bully, maybe he was some kind of rival, maybe even a mentor. Anyway, children around the world become so monstrous that they have to be shipped off to an island which becomes like its own country. Somehow, they're reformed and the book lets us know that from this point on they were "good little angels" (complete with an illustration of the kids as literally that) but that they still entered into the monstrous form sometimes. Unlike many similar stories, I don't believe this one was in rhyme. The illustrations weren't realistic, but weren't overly simplistic either. I may be misremembering parts of it, some could be completely imaginary.
Note that despite some plot similarities, this story had nothing to do with Pinocchio (that being said, I do have false memories of the "snake ice cream" image being in Disney's Pinocchio, probably due to this book).