When a Monster Is Born by Sean Taylor, Nick Sharratt (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

When a monster is born, there are two possibilities--
Either it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, or...
it's an under-your-bed monster.

If it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, that's that.
But if it's an under-your-bed monster all sorts of comical things can happen.
This subversive monster story explores the hilarious possibilities of what if...

Read it at bedtime and laugh your pajamas off...
or read it during the day and laugh your socks off!

Children's Literature

From the time a monster is born, just as when a baby is born, it faces a lifetime of possible choices. First of all, it is either a faraway-in-the-forests monster or it is an under-your-bed monster. In each of the choices, one ends with "that's that," but the other moves on to two more possibilities. The under-your-bed monster could eat you, or you make friends and take it to school, and so the crazy amusing possibilities continue. Of course, if it eats your principal… The choices lead the monster to sleep under an umbrella instead of in an expensive hotel, to give a kitchen girl a rose and fall in love, to kiss and either have the monster turn into a handsome young man or the girl into a monster. In the final round of choices, we find we have come full circle. The comic fantasy provides gross monsters with heavy black outlines, scumbled green-yellow bodies, red horns on nose and forehead, and orange and blue eyeballs, but the settings are naturalistic, with the contrast adding to the humor. Varying page layouts and typefaces spark the visual impact. There are never too many monster books as long as they add something new.

Suzanne Myers HaroldCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1
Fittingly, this book's large size, dramatic black backgrounds, and bold colors leap off the page at readers, just like a monster jumping out of a closet. Based on a traditional Brazilian poem, the story looks at the many possibilities created by the birth of a monster: "either it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, or . . . it's an under-your-bed monster." For each set of choices there is a dead-end option ("If it eats you, that's that."), and an option that leads to two more possibilities. Following a series of wild twists, in which a principal is eaten and a kitchen girl dumps porridge on a monster's head, the tale comes full circle to the birth of a new monster and the original set of possibilities. Bright colors and a wild variety of fonts burst out from each page, and the potential scariness of the monster is tempered by its round body, buck teeth, and fuzzy hair. Various colors, textured fabrics, and other materials fill in the cartoon line drawings. Tiny leaves create the bushes and grass, the monster's hair is full of swirls, and the porridge contains lumps. With its zany humor, skillful timing of page turns, and over-the-top story line, this is an engaging tale that children will respond to and request again and again.

Kirkus Reviews

In the fine tradition of Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985) and Remy Charlip's Fortunately (1980) comes this British import sure to have little monsters everywhere asking to hear it again. "When a monster is born . . . there are two possibilities-either it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, or . . . it's an under-your-bed monster." If it's the type that lives in the forest, that's the end of the story . . . but if it lives under a bed, there are two further possibilities. Each double-page spread presents the next two possibilities in this ever sillier and eventually circular tale. Some might have difficulties with the concept of "possibilities," but that won't hamper their enjoyment. Even when noshing on the principal, Sharratt's squiggly, bright-green monster is more cute than chilling. Sharratt's heavy-lined cartoon illustrations are a perfect match for Taylor's debut. Multiple typefaces will aid even the clumsiest readers in making this a storytime staple. (Picture book. 2-5)

Product Details

• ISBN: 1596432543
  
• ISBN-13: 9781596432543
• Format: Hardcover, 32pp
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Incorporated
• Pub. Date: May 2007
• Sales Rank: 87,143
• Age Range: 3 to 6