Little Monster Friends
Title: My Friend the Monster
Author: Eleanor Taylor
Publisher:BloomsburyChildren’s Book
Genre: Children’s Picture Books
February 1st was the “practice run” and kick off for a weekly gathering at Half Price Books in Humble, a gathering of infants to six year olds for story time. An informal endeavor, I chose a handful of books to read off the cuff and my niece, age eleven, alternated reading aloud with me from her own selections. We tried to pick a little bit of something for everyone, as we had twelve kids there of all ages, both boys and girls. We read from puppet board books, several picture books, a few shiny foil books – but the greatest success was My Friend the Monster by Eleanor Taylor.
My Friend the Monster is the story of a little boy (fox, actually) who moves to a new house and discovers a monster living under his bed. The monster, a large one eyed fuzzy creature is a big old scaredy-cat, and it’s up to Louis the child fox to teach him to be brave and confident.
The pictures are detailed and remind me of something from Highlights for Kids magazine (ie: Richard Scarry). Although the kids were well behaved and sat for all the stories, this one in particular had them leaning in to see the pictures, touching my knee to get a closer look. The story kept them completely riveted and entertained, with only one interruption from a small girl who asked, “Why does the Monster only have one eye?” To which I replied, “Because he’s a monster with one eye. I’m sorry I don’t have a better explanation than that.” She just nodded her head and we continued on with the adventure of Louis and his Monster.
I had flipped through this particular book the day before when I visited the store to get a feel for which books I might choose and make sure my daughter, only 15 months, would be familiar enough to follow directions the next day. Ironically, the page I thought would give me the most trouble while reading to the kiddos was the page that was the biggest success for the entire reading. It was the page where Louis takes Monster to the park for the first time and shows everyone the way… the sentences dance in circles around various images of Louis and his monster along the path. I thought the children would get lost, not being able to see the pictures well enough; they might start to fidget or look away and forget what was happening in the story. Instead, this was the moment I found them leaning in the most, nearly crawling into the rocking chair with me to see Monster and Louis on their merry adventure.
Of course, this convinced me that I had to have this book for Ayla, so as soon as story time was over, I bought a copy. If you’re a book toting mom, I highly recommend heading to the Half Price Books nearest you and grabbing up a copy if you can get your hands on it!
Also, if you’re in the Woodlands/Humble/Atascocita/Kingwood area and you have small children during the day, feel free to come to the Humble Half Price Books at 10:30 am on Wednesdays. I’ll be reading a few books every week as long as we can keep the children sitting (mostly) on their bottoms with bookstore level voices. I hope to make many new, little friends, and hope that all our Monsters can be as pleasant as Louis’.
A Lovely Event
Typically, I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. Its a day that is seemingly invented for sheer consumerism. Many people find this ironic, because I am very happily married to my soul mate and love. The thing is, though, usually I’d rather curl up with a good book as I snuggle my honey, and not worry about what’s going on in the outside world as everyone else worries about things like “Is she going to like this gift?” or “What can I do for him that wont say too much and scare him off?”
You're Invited!
But this year, its been put in perspective of things I love and things I can do to make it more fun. This year, I’m an Event Coordinator for a bookstore I love and I get to make it what I want. This year, its about celebrating some of my favorite stories of all time (books like The Scarlet Pimpernel and Time Traveler’s Wife will absolutely be featured, as well as biographies on people like Nicholas and Alexandra and so on) and celebrating a fabulous little Italian restaraunt in Humble that I’ve grown to love. This year, you can come to the Humble Half Price Bookstore, buy your favorite love story and upon purchase be entered to win a dinner for two to Italiano’s in Humble. How much fun is that?
What’s even better? We’re doing it on the 10th, not the 14th, so people who already have big plans, or have to work because they are in the retail or service industry, or just don’t want to fight Valentine’s Day traffic can have a low-key but intimate date night with us. On top of that, some lucky couple will get to do Valentine’s Day, or some other special day they choose, practically for free!
My hope is that if we get a lot of people in the door, next year more businesses will donate gift cards and the year after that even more people! We could maybe one day build Valentine’s Day up to a bookstore extravaganza so that even the most non-Valentine-date night people ever, like me, will look forward to the month of February.
So, if you’re in the Houston area, come celebrate Valentine’s on February 10th with me as we bask in the loveliness of books – our mutual true love.
Anakalian Whims 