The Very True Legend of the Mongolian Death Worms by Sandra Fay (review)

While legends tell of monstrous, fanged, slithering, poisonous creatures beneath the Gobi Desert, it turns out the Mongolian Death Worms—or at least this little family made up of Beverly, Trevor, Kevin, and Neville—are actually quite sweet. Sure, their teeth are like razors, and their sickly green drool looks an awful lot like venom, and their squishy red bodies are, frankly, grotesque, but all they really want is to be good neighbors. Unfortunately, their mere appearance frightens the other desert animals despite the family’s best efforts (wearing name tags, dressing fancy, offering up cupcakes), but when a flood sweeps over the desert, the worms’ ability to float becomes quite handy for everyone. The message that friendships are earned only by usefulness is not particularly reassuring to awkward youngsters, but the family’s earnest and determined efforts to socialize, futile as they may be, lend the story a goofy humor while rendering the worms both sympathetic and surprisingly relatable. Bug-eyed, sharp-toothed, and quite slobbery, the worm family manages to be hideous and ridiculously adorable, and the art, done in “potato print and watercolor,” is deeply textured, with the grainy sand blowing across the desert and the dappled, then saturating rain falling soon thereafter. Pair this with Battersby’s Trouble (BCCB 1/21) for a lesson on the unreliability of first impressions. A note on the origins of the real-life legend of the Mongolian Death Worms and purported sightings is included.