Reviews: Monsters!

I recently finished planning preschool programs for the rest of the year, and of course October would not be complete without a monster-themed story time. I am always happy to add fresh new stories to my repertoire, so let's see what the TBR pile has for us:

9780062349156

Getting George to sleep is a nightmare. But getting a monster to sleep? That's an adventure.

Now, this is cute! George can't sleep because there is a monster under his bed. The monster (who looks like he came off Sesame Street, actually) can't sleep, because...there's another monster under the floor! A successive chain of monsters, each slightly scarier-looking but never really awful, takes us to the center of the earth, where the final monster (a dragon) has an entirely different problem.

A quick, silly read, this one will easily fit into October's story time with no worries of causing actual nightmares. For an activity, we may create a scene with many layers and add monsters to it. So many fun ways to make monsters!

9780062345226

Ready, set, go! The monster truck race is on in this frightfully delightful picture book.  On a spooky speedway, Monster Trucks moan! Monster Trucks grumble! Monster Trucks groan!

Join Frankentruck, Zombie Truck, Ghost Truck, and more as they race to the finish line. But one of these trucks isn’t quite who you think.

Get your different reading voices ready for this one! If you get as far as Frankentruck, and you don't read "He's alive! HE'S ALIVE" like this, you are hereby stripped of all your librarian laurels:

You'll moan, you'll howl, and you'll have your young listeners on the edges of their seats to see who wins the race - will it be Frankentruck, Werewolf Truck, Zombie Truck, Ghost Truck, Vampire Truck, or...er...Little Blue Bus? Another non-scary crowd pleaser, we might have to create our own monster trucks and have a race around the room!

Finally, one I picked up at the recommendation of many other librarians:

9781419717314

You can't scare us, monster! Prompt your listeners to reach out and tickle the monster as you turn the pages, prompting him to lose his horns - which become the moon, his hands - which become bushes, and so forth, until nothing is left but a quiet bedtime scene. Lots to do here with seeing parts of a whole, conquering fears, looking at shapes in different ways, etc. Plus it's just plain fun! This one just screams to be made into a flannel board.