It is one of Edward Gorey's best-known books[1] and is the most notorious amongst his roughly half-dozen mock alphabets.

[2] The morbid humor of the book comes in part from the mundane ways in which the children in the story die, such as falling down the stairs or choking on a peach.

Far from illustrating the dramatic and fantastical childhood nightmares, these scenarios instead poke fun at the banal paranoias that come as a part of parenting.

[4] The book tells of the deaths of twenty-six children in thirteen rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black-and-white illustrations.

It describes the cause of death for each child, such as being set on fire, being run over by a train or being attacked by wild animals.