’Tis the season for all things monstrous—but not in Cutesville, “Home of the Fluffy.” Bright’s hairy, snaggle-toothed monster feels out of place amid the town’s cutesy critters, so he packs his binoculars and guidebooks (The Rough Guide to the Big Wide World and Making Friends for Dummies, among others) and hits the road. Like the main characters in Mo Willems’ Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (2005) and Tammi Sauer’s Mostly Monsterly (2010), Monster’s appearance doesn’t match his sensitive disposition, and he yearns for someone to love him “just the way he is.” Bright’s rough-textured print technique—think degraded photocopy—suits our scruffy little hero to a T, while the bright, saturated color palette of reds and purples against pale and pretty backgrounds reflects his optimistic nature. The ending is disappointingly run-of-the-mill—after searching high and low, Monster’s soul mate turns out to be a bus-driving girl monster who looks exactly like him—but the friendly, clever text and winsome illustrations make this book a decent seasonal addition to the bedtime stack. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Paula Willey
Rachel Bright is a wordsmith, printmaker, and thinker of happy thoughts. The author-illustrator of several acclaimed picture books, she is passionate about time-honored printmaking techniques. She works from her converted caravan studio, on a farm near the sea in the south of England, where she lives with her partner, a dog called Elvis, and a cat called Superman.
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