Monster Book

K-Gr 2—A young girl's imaginative drawings transform a colorless town in this wordless Dutch import. Making her way through a geometric cityscape in black and white, a girl draws a series of colorful, smiling monsters that immediately come to life. As the monsters grow in size and number and begin to fill in the buildings with color, the previously genial townspeople protest. The girl takes a hose to the buildings to wash away the color, a process finished off by the sudden arrival of rain clouds. But even after the town returns to black and white, the girl and her friends hide in a corner of the page, coloring away. Hoogstad's illustrations of the monsters are childlike in style with a scribbled texture that stands out sharply against the straight black ink lines of the background. The characters' expressions remain relatively unchanged throughout, which invites repeated looks and discussion. Some readers may need assistance interpreting the open-ended resolution, but budding artists will be inspired by one girl's boundless creativity and joyful sense of collaboration. An additional purchase for large collections.—Chelsea Couillard-Smith, Sacramento Public Library, CA