A story full of possibilities! (When a Monster is Born - Sean Taylor)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	When a Monster is Born - Sean Taylor
Date:	30/09/09 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent story and illustrations

Disadvantages: none

On a recent trip to the library, we were first drawn to the book 'When a monster is born' because of the name of Nick Sharratt. He is a great illustrator and we already have quite a few of his books at home. His illustrations involve a wonderful sense of humour, and just looking at the wonderful picture on the front of this book, I knew we would not be disappointed with what we would see inside! I had not heard of the author - Sean Taylor - before but since reading this wonderful book I am very impressed and I think that the collaboration between the two of them is excellent.

When a Monster is Born is a story full of possibilities - in fact every other page presents the reader with two possibilities and that is what makes this book so clever and readable. It also starts to provide a familiarity and rhythm to each page that young children will appreciate. Let me give an example... At the start of the book it reads:

When a monster is born... (turn over the page)
... there are two possibilities -
Either it's a Faraway-in-the-forests monster, or...
...it's an under-your bed monster.

Now, we are told that if the monster is a faraway-in-the-forests monster then that's that! That would be the end of the story but if it's the under-your-bed monster then there are two possibilities! The possibilities are that either it will eat you or you will make friends with it and take it to school! And so it goes on with each time one of the possibilities leading nowhere but the other one always leading to two more possibilities. Each time the ideas become more zany and outrageous and both my daughters just love them. There are all sorts of possibilities throughout such as the monster eats the head teacher, it falls in love with a hotel kitchen girl, she turns into a monster and they get married, either to have a baby monster or to eat each other! However, if they have a baby monster when it is born there could be two possibilities.... (Yes, well you know what they are - don't you??)

I love the way that the very clever ending takes you right back to the words at the beginning of the story and you could just imagining going on with it on a continuous loop! This is a very satisfying read and it is also very well constructed which soon enables young children to start joining in with the story telling.

The illustrations are superb throughout with some wonderfully funny looking monsters. If you are familiar with Nick Sharratt, all the pictures are how you would expect from the way he illustrates. There are bold lines and bright colours. The monster that we follow through the story has lime green fur, one blue and one orange bulging eye, two shocking pink horns and three sticky out teeth!

The way that the text is set out on the pages is very visually pleasing too. There are a variety of fonts used throughout and often with key words printed in big bold capital letters. Some pages have quite a lot of text whereas others have very little and one page only has one word - OR - on a totally black background. The first time you read this book you just never know what to expect each time that you turn over a page!

Overall, this is a very entertaining book to share with young children and has everything you could wish for - a great story with lots to talk about and some fabulous illustrations. What more could you ask for in a children's book?

We borrowed this book from the library but I strongly suspect that my girls would like to keep it. We shall either have to incur a hefty library fine or buy it on Amazon for £4.49!

Summary: a fabulous book for young children