Back in October we took a closer look at MyLittleBigTown's new range of Tiny Twisted Tales. Penned and illustrated by the frenzied nibs of Calvin Innes (with e-books edited by Brett Innes), the first tale "Stuart the Bug Eating Man" got a favourable thumbs up from us. 

Now the range has grown, and has a whole new set of funky colour covers to celebrate. Joining Stuart we also now have Pale Henry, and the kick-ass Jenny (the werewolf-hunter).

Starting with Pale Henry, the sad tale of a lad who just doesn't like going out, Calvin and Brett conjure up a story that could almost mirror my teenage years (go out and DO things? Are you crazy? I've got a ZX Spectrum at home, why on earth would I want to go out into the real world?) Henry soon realises that being pale, thin and wan isn't the be all and end all, and out there are trees to climb, people to meet and other kids to play with.

Jenny is a completely different character. She likes to go out - mostly at the stroke of midnight - and put the world to rights by largely ridding it of the all-too-well-known Werewolf menace (What's that? You didn't know the world was crawling with Loup-Garou? Perhaps you're in denial because you ARE one!) Jenny is like a one man (or should that be one-girl) Scooby Doo Gang, scared of absolutely nothing - even the biggest most slobber-chopped Werewolf in the world.

These bite-sized little rhyming story books (also available on Kindle as well as in print) are deliciously dark, reminding us of cool stuff by Charles Addams and Edward Gorey. If your children have a taste for the macabre or even the slightly icky, then they're going to love these a lot.

Charlotte's best bit: Jenny (naturally) who is a heck of a role model!

Daddy's favourite bit: Great format for little story books (the sort of thing I could well imagine toting around in a back pocket as a kid and pulling out during boring maths lessons - excellent!)

Our friends at MyLittleBigTown kindly sent us copies of some of their latest books and amongst them was one of their new range of 'Tiny Twisted Tales', bite-sized books with rhyming text and illustrations by one of the busiest guys in the business, Calvin Innes.

Calvin is tightly involved with most of MyLittleBigTown's output, mostly as an illustrator but in this case he's wrestled with words and rhymes to bring you a twisted tale of a man who really loves eating insects.

Entomophagic Stuart the Bug Eating Man isn't well read, he's not vastly knowledgeable but he really does like to chow down on centipedes, scoff spiders and slurp slug juice.

Poor Stuart's wife despairs of him and urges him to go out and get a proper job. With a flash of inspiration, Stuart hits on a brilliant idea - to merge his career with his love of troughing on creepy crawlies. From then on Stuart becomes...the Bug Eating Guy!

I was quite surprised that Charlotte loved this book as much as she did. It's the sort of thing I could imagine young boys finding endlessly fascinating but my little girl, though blessed with an innate knowledge of Disney princesses and fairy tales, does seem to like icky gross stories too.

It really reminded me of the fantastic Edward Gorey stories though it's not quite as dark and gothic as those. We look forward to seeing the other tiny twisted tales arriving soon from MyLittleBigTown.

Charlotte's best bit: Stuart's super-cool bug-shaped bling!

Daddy's favourite bit: Gross liquidized slug shakes! Yum!

(Book kindly supplied for review by MyLittleBigTown)