NESSIE THE MONSTER

by Ted Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1974

Though without the easy outrageousness of his Meet My Folks (KR, 1973), this unastonished chronicle of the Loch Ness monster's preposterous roadside encounters is likely to appeal both to very young children who will take it straight and to others who appreciate a more subtle kind of playfulness. (For a start, the lines don't regularly rhyme, but any five or ten or so consecutive ones will end with the same consonants.) It's all about how Nessie (""She is about the size of a truck,/ But shaped like an old sock/ With a long worm of a neck./ She is beginning to feel sick""), to prove that she exists, leaves her lake and makes for London -- eluding foxhounds, devouring a human dinner host, joining a peace march, seeking her kind at a zoo and museum and generally snarling traffic before she runs into ""a wretched Scots writer of verses"" who helps her obtain recognition from the Queen, an appointment as vice-regent and celebrity status that brings weekly crowds to Loch Ness. Jan Pyk's black and white line towns and people have a suitably straightfaced and self-important silliness, and his green-curlicue-on-green saurian Nessie brightens the pages in a spiffy, decorative use of one-color illustration.

Pub Date: March 1, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1974

Categories: CHILDREN'S