Skip to main content

Monsters Eat Whiny Children


Monsters Eat Whiny Children
by Bruce Eric Kaplan
Simon and Schuster, 2010. Unpaged. Picture Book.

Henry and Eve are "two perfectly delightful children" who are going through a terrible phase of endless whining. Their kindly father warns them that monsters eat whiny children but they don't believe it until a monster shows up with a drawstring bag and spirits them away to his "lair on the bad side of town." Once there he starts to assemble a Whiny Children Salad but Henry whines because he doesn't like to sit on lettuce and Eve doesn't want to sit in a wooden bowl. Mrs. Monster wants paprika on the salad instead of cilantro in the salad but Mr. Monster hates paprika so in turn they decide to grill whiny-child burgers, make whiny-child cake, and finally settle on whiny-child cucumber sandwiches. While all this is going on around them, Henry and Eve start to play with the monsters' toys and then climb out the window and run back home. This delightful cautionary tale should play equally well with children and adults, laughs to be had all around. Since Kaplan dedicates the book to "Henry and Eve, of course," one may detect an autobiographical strain.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...

Review: Fowl Play

  Fowl Play By Kristin O'Donnell Tubb New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2024. Fiction 277 pages. Still reeling from her beloved uncle's death, Chloe Alvarez is comforted and confused when at his last will and testament reading, Uncle Will gifts her his African Grey parrot, Charlie. Charlie has a robust vocabulary and loves to make Alexa requests for her favorite songs, but when she starts saying things like, "homicide," and "cyanide," Chloe becomes convinced that Uncle Will may have met his demise by murder instead of a genetic disease, as was previously thought. Ultimately, bringing in her brother, Grammy, and Uncle Frank (and of course Charlie,) Chloe's ragtag and adoring family support her search for answers ---going on stakeouts, engaging in fast pursuits, and searching for clues. But as the suspects stack up and the mystery grows, Chole will learn that the process of death and grieving is complicated, and in the end her Uncle Will's words that, ...

Review: The Mythmakers

  The Mythmakers By John Hendrix New York: Abrams Fanfare, 2024. Informational. 217 pages.  Before C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had ever published world-renowned literature, they were friends. This book starts with the boyhood of each author, discussing how each lost their parents and the toll that took on them. It moves on to talk about the experience of each man in the trenches of World War I, and their eventual meeting at Oxford. It further chronicles their "fellowship" through the writing of many of their notable works, as well as their eventual falling out.  This book is an interesting mix of comic and narrative nonfiction, flipping back and forth between chapters. A lion and wizard appear in the comic portions (in a nod to Aslan and Gandalf) to explain background information about mythology, the time period, and other pertinent information about the two. The author makes use of a limited color palette, using mostly greens, purples, and yellows, to draw the reader i...