The Problem with Not Being Scared of Monsters

K-Gr 3—Intrepid monster lovers will delight in reading again and again this list of irksome consequences of being friendly with these creatures. The watercolor and pen cartoons do not miss a mark: depictions of bulky, spiked, tentacled, polka-dotted, scaly, hairy, sharp-toothed, lurid-colored behemoth, and shrimp-sized monsters crush any moment of rest and spoil perfectly good cereal with a long red tongue, and the list goes on. Monsters won't leave this impatient child alone. He can't finish his homework, it gets misplaced, and his breakfast cereal tastes funny. Each complaint comes to life with subtle, amusing visual and typographical surprises. While the text says, "Snack takes forever to clean up," the illustration depicts a veritable food-hurling fandango. The nighttime flash-lit illustrations are superb, as are the dynamic layouts when, all of a sudden, something does scare the boy. His little brother shows up in shadow with his hair standing straight up. Will he get the monsters off his back? Recommended this one to mischievous types of all shapes and sizes, and pair it with Mo Willems's Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (Hyperion, 2005) to spark a discussion of unconventional points of view.—Sara Lissa Paulson, The American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City