It’s hard to tell whether the lesson in Kelly DiPucchio’s Zombie in Love (Simon & Schuster, $12.99, ages 4-8) is that there is someone for everyone or get thee to an orthodontist. Poor Mortimer the Zombie could not attract a girl until he found one just like him with a half-toothy, half-toothless smile captured. The story also has lessons in persistence and the literal meaning of giving someone your heart. A love story appropriate for Halloween, smiles and teeth may also give the excessive holiday candy fest some extra bite.
Teen Table Manners
The 50th anniversary edition of Joe Eula’s Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers (Random House, $17.99), packaged in robin’s-egg blue like a Tiffany box, is useful for more than teenagers but not for simple dining on Halloween candy. It focuses on table manners at dinner parties, 
with detailed advice about leaving forks and knives crossed if resting while eating but leaving them parallel with the prongs up and knife edge facing the fork when finished.
Don’t put too much in your mouth at one time so that, as the author delicately puts it, “you will always be ready to join the conversation.” The knife-and-fork etiquette seems far more than 50 years old and not putting too much in your mouth just common sense — and so all the more enjoyable to read as “etiquette.”
Frank Lipsius is a contributing writer to MetroKids.
