Though mildly playful, there is not much to this creature feature.
A gaggle of friendly monsters cuts a rug on a moonlit night.
Red, blue, yellow and purple creatures with horns, antennae and bug eyes join in the party, but one small beastie is too shy to participate, which readers learn through its quiet asides. In the end, the little monster is invited by the rest to dance through the night. The layout of the rhyming verse, which mostly scans, tries to be as playful as its protagonists. Unfortunately, it skips across the page in a dark type and ends up being both hard to read in the correct sequence and difficult to make out against the nighttime backgrounds. The goofy-looking monsters themselves are created with a fuzzy brushstroke in garish colors, making each double-page spread of this shindig look overbusy.
Though mildly playful, there is not much to this creature feature. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58925-627-9
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nothing flashy or overly ambitious, this small board book starring an odd-looking little monster is a quirky way to...
See what Monster’s day is like, from his morning stretch till he returns to his bed at the end of a long day.
Fuzzy and gray, with blue eyebrows and two sharp teeth (one upper, one lower), Monster is a hand-felted creation by fiber artist Gleiner. To create the illustrations, she poses and arranges Monster along with props made of fiber and other materials and then photographs the tableaux. The process results in 3-D images with a whimsical feel. The intentionally simple storyline follows Monster through the course of a typical day. He eats breakfast, goes to work, eats lunch, takes a nap and walks his dog. In the evening, he eats dinner (a plate of spaghetti and meatballs that, upon closer inspection, appear to be orange yarn and red pom-poms), plays his guitar, takes a bath, brushes his teeth (all two of them) and reads a bit before bed. Monster’s day features many ordinary actions that children either accomplish themselves or see their parents perform. Sharp-eyed children will be intrigued to see that the upper tooth migrates back and forth from one side of Monster’s mouth to the other as the day progresses.
Nothing flashy or overly ambitious, this small board book starring an odd-looking little monster is a quirky way to introduce little ones to the concept of a daily routine and its constituent parts. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-936669-26-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: blue manatee press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
A silly and entertaining interactive read.
A monster helps itself to readers’ fingers.
It's lunchtime, and this blue-and-pink monster is looking for something to eat. Readers insert all five digits into holes through the front cover and, one by one as the pages turn, the fingers are gobbled up. The monster narrates its meal with rhyming couplets that evoke silly and gross imagery that will make little readers squirm with delight: “Delectable digits for nibbling and crunching. / Scrumptious wigglers perfect for munching.” The illustrations are perfunctory, with bold lines surrounding the rounded, bouncy characters typical to this sort of media. The interactive play is what makes this book stand apart. Little ones will enjoy putting their own fingers on the monster's plate, but older readers will be able to make this one really sing as a read-aloud toward the end of an intimate storytime. The holes are reasonably sized, but those with large hands may have a difficult time maneuvering.
A silly and entertaining interactive read. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-37799-7
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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