Vancouver illustrator Ryan Heshka clearly has a thing for Halloween. His previous book, ABC Spook Show, was an alphabet primer that employed classic movie monsters – witches, goblins, mad scientists.

His newest picture book revels in that same iconography, taking us through a typical day in the life of Monster Town, from the moment the sun goes down and the zombies “are on their way to work” to “when the sun rises and it’s time to sleep.” During the day, the various ghouls go about their work – Wolfman Jacques cuts hair, Frank N. Stein is an electrician, the vampires staff the blood bank, and so on. For part of the book, we follow an adolescent vampire boy as he heads to school, has his midnight brunch, and finally drifts off to sleep alongside his black cat.

This notion of a topsy-turvy monster world that mirrors our own has been done many times before – it’s hard not to be reminded of Martin Waddell and Joseph Wright’s Little Dracula series, for example – but Heshka is clearly not aiming for originality here. The book’s focus is the illustrations, which virtually drip with slime and gore (though there’s nothing here that would scare a toddler). The book is a treat to look at, and younger readers will find the marriage of scaarrrrry monsters and everyday occupations amusing. All the same, there is a slightly undercooked feel to Heshka’s creation. Though we are ostensibly following the young vampire, he appears in only half of the spreads, and sometimes for slightly inexplicable reasons: why, for example, does he end his day by riding the broom-powered “United Scare Lines” with a witch? Also, while it’s pretty obvious why the wolfman cuts hair and the cyclops is an optometrist, why is the mummy a veteranarian? The text itself is a little flat, especially alongside the eye-popping visuals.

In the end, though, if Heshka’s midnight world is not quite as scary good as it could be, you can’t help getting sucked in by the sight of, say, zombies wearing ties and carrying suitcases and take-out coffee.