He's Been a Monster All Day!

PreS-Gr 1—While sitting in the time-out corner, a little boy overhears his mother grumble, "He's been a monster all day." The child starts to fantasize about being a green, warty ogre and indulging in the pleasurable mayhem of monster truck races, nighttime playground romps, and salamander-tail feasts. The dream begins to lose its appeal when he realizes that his manners-free lifestyle would scare everyone away: "Being a monster/isn't so great./I'm going home-hope it isn't too late…/Tomorrow she'll see/a monster I'm not!" Moore's pencil and watercolor cartoon illustrations show the boy as a charming google-eyed, scaly creature reveling in a mud bath and also as a sweet-faced sleepyhead tucked into bed. The gently rhyming text is perfect for reading aloud and will spark discussions of beastly and non-beastly behavior.—Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada