Clever puns and elaborately detailed, surreal artwork illuminate a collection of comically grim verses that can't help but tickle the funny bone.

Reader, if I had more time
I'd say au revoir in rhyme,
Sayonara, ciao in verse --
But I have to catch a hearse.

Peek inside Once Upon a Tomb and find twenty-two poems, each of which tells, in hilarious verse, the story of an untimely demise -- from a school principal to a bully, a food critic to a cafeteria lady, an underwear salesman to a soccer player. Complemented by Simon Bartram's deadpan illustrations, J. Patrick Lewis's cryptic tour of headstones and epitaphs is silly, spooky -- and far from grave.