HOW TO TEACH YOUR MONSTER TO READ

Learning to read is hard work—for kids and monsters alike.

A monster with a scruffy orange body, purple ears and tail, and short rounded horns disappears after a tough reading lesson. “It’s kind of my fault,” reflects the story’s narrator, a tan-skinned child with curly brown hair. “I got carried away. I was acting like a teacher the other day.” It’s an insightful remark, but after a promising start, the book goes downhill as the youngster proceeds on a truly didactic search for the monster. “Word families look and sound the same at the end. Let’s use this knowledge to find my best friend.” Charts of word families appear with relentless frequency, competing with both the rhyming text and words that appear in the accompanying cartoon illustrations (for instance, a welcome mat or a button with the phrase “Reading for the win!”). Kids learning to sound out words will enjoy predicting the text; after the protagonist observes, “As I sit sipping from my favorite MUG, / I’m gently pulled into a giant…,” youngsters will eagerly shout out “HUG!” But on the whole, the attempt to blend a literacy tutorial with an exploration of how to be a good friend may prove overwhelming for the intended audience of pre-readers.

A solid effort hampered by information overload.