Sunday, October 17, 2010

Read This: When a Monster is Born

Keeping with Halloween inspired books, I wanted to share another monster book with you that we love--When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor and illustrated by Nick Sharratt.   I think I bought this book for Beeper a couple of years ago when he was in the hospital having his tonsils removed and tubes put in his ears.  Of the stack of books I bought for him to keep him entertained, this was the one he most wanted to read over and over together--side by side in the hospital bed while he ate popsicles.  All that aside, let me tell you a bit about the book...
This book tells the story of a monster's life from birth through a variety of possibilities and paths a monster can choose to go, each with its own silly and beastly outcome.
 For instance, when a monster finally gets to school, it can either be an exemplary student and become the first monster to join the basketball team, or it could eat the principal.  Either option is entirely viable when you are a green hairy monster, I suppose.
And so you get to the follow the monster through his life, from birth to hiding under your bed to school and out into the world where he can choose to do things like dance the boogie-woogie or stay in a fancy hotel or fall in love with a kitchen girl and get married...
...and all the while you learn about what happens when the monster chooses one course over another, eventually all coming full circle in the end.  It is a clever book, with colorful and happy illustrations  (even when the monster is eating the principal) that pop from the black backgrounds.   Full of unexpected possibilities and outcomes, there are few things that happen in a monster's life that are entirely predictable (other than showing up under your bed, of course), which is part of the charm of this monster book that is more funny than frightening.  

7 comments:

Kristin said...

Just wanted to pass along a versatile blogger award to you! I think your site is so creative and fun...thanks for sharing your creativity with us!!

Check out the award here:
http://mangocallalily.blogspot.com/2010/10/versatile-blogger-award.html

Have a great day!
Kristin

Nohemí said...

This is really a lovely book!!!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous book I'm thinking a copy if this a felt sift monster and a pair of ors for some of the boys in my family for Xmas this year thanks for the inspiration!

m. bloom said...

Thanks for the recommendation. I've put in a request for my local library to put one on hold for us!

Holly said...

I love how so many of you are savvy enough to simply make a book request at the library. I do not do this often enough with books--we certainly do with movies though. In fact, we just reserved and watched Ghostbusters with Beeper since he has been walking around singing the theme song for months but had never seen the movie...more than anything though, I just love the library as a place. I love the feel of the library. I need to do a post about some of our libraries here in Minneapolis...

Anonymous said...

My 3 year old picked out this book from the library a few weeks ago, we all loved it!

Agnes said...

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for your books posts. We are taking our 4 year old on her first overseas plane trip in a few weeks, and have bought When a Monster is Born, The Monsterologist and The Spider and teh Fly for the trip. As you can tell, she's into scary things :) Keep them coming - I have your other recommendations on the wishlist.