cover image Are You a Monster?

Are You a Monster?

Debra Hess. Longmeadow Press, $9.94 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-681-00755-0

It's hard to say what's worst about this trying book--the tired story line, the hackneyed rhymed verses, the lurid palette or the crude draftsmanship. Molly, a bug-eyed little girl, is afraid that monsters will invade her bedroom at night, a preoccupation that fuels her breakfast conversation: ``Do [monsters] eat little girls in their beds in the night?/ Would they gobble me whole or just take a bite?/ Do they ever come out when the world is all light?/ When I meet a monster, should I smile or take flight?'' One night, during a thunderstorm, Molly in fact meets a monster, who teaches her that monsters are secretly afraid of people. Graves presents a gallery of ugly oddballs, including a cross between a rabbit and a gorilla, a startled orange snail with a green tongue, and a calf-faced beast with web feet and bat wings. For an imaginative and thoughtful recent title about coping with bogeymen and other feared bedtime marauders, try Valiska Gregory's and Virginia Austin's Kate's Giants (reviewed Sept. 11). Ages 4-9. (Nov.)