Have the art table and smocks ready.
An unseen first-person narrator tries to draw scary beasts.
“I want to make the scariest monster ever!” opens the protagonist, planning to give the creature “a long, green tongue” so it will be “a monster masterpiece—MY MONSTERPIECE!” The first spread shows paints, brushes, and the abstract beginnings of the monster. The second spread shows the finished piece of art. What go unseen, though the text mentions them, are the human characters. The protagonist tries to spook Mom with the picture, but instead she’s enchanted: “I love this chubby kitty,” she says. Three more iterations use the same structure: Protagonist draws a monster with a seemingly scary feature (pointy horns, sharp teeth, claws) and fails to frighten loved ones, who all cheerfully misidentify and mischaracterize the images (“Great job painting an owl!” says Dad; “It’s so cute!” says sister). No humans appear visually until the end, and even then they are child-style stick figures, and a concluding twist in which monsters draw scary kids is more confusing than compelling. Due to these factors, the appeal of this book lies in Hoffman’s portrayal of artistic media. Backgrounds are graph paper, patterned papers, and (perhaps) a lilac-painted board; crayons, paints, pencils, and collages are shown lushly mid-use; scissors, fabrics, and pompoms make vivid cameos. The monster-creation plot is fun, but this is more an invitation to make art.
Have the art table and smocks ready. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953458-01-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Yeehoo Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
This seemingly simple tale packs a satisfying emotional punch. Scarily good! (Picture book. 4-7)
Monster lives in Cutesville, where he feels his googly eyes make him unlovable, especially compared to all the “cute, fluffy” kittens, puppies and bunnies. He goes off to find someone who will appreciate him just the way he is…with funny and heartwarming results.
A red, scraggly, pointy-eared, arm-dragging monster with a pronounced underbite clutches his monster doll to one side of his chest, exposing a purplish blue heart on the other. His oversized eyes express his loneliness. Bright could not have created a more sympathetic and adorable character. But she further impresses with the telling of this poor chap’s journey. Since Monster is not the “moping-around sort,” he strikes out on his own to find someone who will love him. “He look[s] high” from on top of a hill, and “he look[s] low” at the bottom of the same hill. The page turn reveals a rolling (and labeled) tumbleweed on a flat stretch. Here “he look[s] middle-ish.” Careful pacing combines with dramatic design and the deadpan text to make this sad search a very funny one. When it gets dark and scary, he decides to head back home. A bus’s headlights shine on his bent figure. All seems hopeless—until the next page surprises, with a smiling, orange monster with long eyelashes and a pink heart on her chest depicted at the wheel. And “in the blink of a googly eye / everything change[s].”
This seemingly simple tale packs a satisfying emotional punch. Scarily good! (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-374-34646-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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