By Noriyuki Konishi
Every annoying thing that happens to you is secretly the fault of a small invisible monster, and now one boy can see them all.
Nate frees a ghost butler named Whisper from a capsule machine in the woods, and Whisper repays him with a watch that makes Yo-kai visible. Yo-kai are the spirits behind everyday nuisances — one makes you hungry at the worst moment, one makes you forget things, one makes you fall asleep in class. Nate spends the book finding out that his whole life has been sabotaged on the sly by little creatures with terrible personalities.
The premise is a joke machine your child already believes in: there is a reason you forgot your homework, and it's a monster. Each Yo-kai gets a self-contained chapter with a name, a design, and a gag, which suits a child who reads in short bursts and loves to catalog things. If they've played the games, they'll recognize half the cast on sight.