If Your Monster Won't Go To Bed

by Denise Vega, Zachariah OHora (Illustrator)

Overview

For fans of How to Babysit a Grandpa comes a tongue-in-cheek story that is a step-by-step manual for putting your monster to bed.
 
If you have a monster that won’t go to bed, don’t bother asking your parents to help. They know a lot about putting kids to bed, but nothing about putting monsters to bed. It’s not their fault; they’re just not good at it. Read this book instead.
 
It will tell you what to feed your monster before bed (it’s not warm milk), and what to sing to your monster (it’s not a soothing lullaby), and what to read to your monster to send him off to dreamland in no time (the scarier, the better).
 
Just make sure you don’t get too good at putting monsters to bed—or you might have a BIG problem on your hands!

Praise for Zachariah OHora:
 
“The text is pitch-perfect, and the art is its match.” —Chicago Tribune (Wolfie the Bunny)
 
“Picture books with hip, quirky illustrations that are not just funny but also have plenty of heart are hard to find. The stylish My Cousin Momo by Zachariah OHora has it all.” —The Boston Globe (My Cousin Momo)
 
[set star] “OHora’s acrylic paintings are the heart of this tale. They clearly show everyone’s feelings . . . and there are brilliant bits of humor and whimsy.” —School Library Journal, starred review (Wolfie the Bunny)
 
“OHora could paint stones in the street and make them funny.” —Publishers Weekly (My Cousin Momo)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553496550
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	210,669
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD780L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

DENISE VEGA is the author of several books for young readers, including Click Here (To Find Out How I Survived Seventh Grade), Fact of Life #31, Build a Burrito, Access Denied, and Rock On. She lives in Colorado with her family. Find her online at denisevega.com.
 
ZACHARIAH OHORA is an award-winning illustrator and children’s book author. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Bloomberg Businessweek, as well as on NPR. He is the author-illustrator of My Cousin Momo; No Fits, Nilson!; and Stop Snoring, Bernard! and is the illustrator of Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman and The Pet Project by Lisa Wheeler. Find out more at zohora.com and @ZachariahOHora.

Editorial Reviews

01/02/2017
Vega’s spoof of parenting manuals stars a girl in pink pajamas and her monster, a yeti-style hulk with sherbet-striped fur. When it comes to monster bedtimes, “Don’t ask your parents to help you,” the narrator cautions. “They know a lot about putting kids to bed, but nothing about putting monsters to bed.” OHora’s (The Not So Quiet Library) thick, haphazard black lines are almost intrinsically funny. The girl’s father is so intimidated by the challenges of putting a monster to bed that he jumps right into his wife’s arms. (They’re a biracial couple, and the pajama-clad girl has brown skin.) The girl’s successful formula follows: “Step 1: Pour your monster a nice big glass of calming, crunchy, oozy bug juice,” followed by an ice-cold bath and a terrifying story. Vega (Grandmother, Have the Angels Come?) makes fine use of tried-and-true comic elements: the child who dominates an enormous beast, gross-out language (burps, smelly underwear), and the way her monster loves everything human children hate. Readers will be too busy giggling to go to sleep. Ages 3–7. Author’s agent: Lara Perkins, Andrea Brown Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Sean McCarthy, Sean McCarthy Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Zachariah OHora:
 
“The text is pitch-perfect, and the art is its match.” —Chicago Tribune (Wolfie the Bunny)
 
“Picture books with hip, quirky illustrations that are not just funny but also have plenty of heart are hard to find. The stylish My Cousin Momo by Zachariah OHora has it all.” —The Boston Globe (My Cousin Momo)
 
[set star] “OHora’s acrylic paintings are the heart of this tale. They clearly show everyone’s feelings . . . and there are brilliant bits of humor and whimsy.” —School Library Journal, starred review (Wolfie the Bunny)
 
“OHora could paint stones in the street and make them funny.” —Publishers Weekly (My Cousin Momo)

From the Publisher

03/01/2017
PreS-Gr 2—A brown-skinned girl in fuzzy bunny slippers faces the unenviable nightly task of putting her overtired monster to bed. An omnipresent narrator engages the unnamed main character and readers by discussing the importance of monsters getting their rest. Grumpy monsters are no fun, and with a series of "don'ts" that are reminiscent of what a chiding adult might say to a rambunctious child, the narrative proceeds to present what not to do, as readers follow the main character and her shaggy monster on their typical nighttime routine. Vega's incorporation of alliteration and wordplay, when woven with Ohora's bold acrylic art, creates a humorous discourse ideal for storytelling. Diversity abounds as the main character's parents, a white father quivering in the arms of her black mother, are shown to be incapable of putting monsters to bed. Vega reassures readers that "it's not their fault; they're just not good at it" and proceeds to list other concerns, such as sheep counting and avoiding the "Monster Stomp," which includes "waggle-wiggling, fur-flicking, [and] claw-clenching." The narrator provides six steps in the second half of the book, charmingly scrawled in a childlike print. Each step is fully illustrated on a spread. Strikingly bold artwork depicts a large, multicolored, bristly monster whose furry horns bear a passing resemblance to the young main character's hair puffs, slyly suggesting that bedtime routines are tough for monsters and children alike. VERDICT A superb example of picture book collaboration, this appealing title will be popular in most collections.—Rachel Zuffa, Racine Public Library, WI

School Library Journal

2016-12-14
What with keeping the fridge stocked with slug mush and sour green milk, incidentals such as mud soap and fang paste seem downright ordinary—unlike the consequences of ignoring the emphatic "Don't"s populating this unorthodox DIY manual: "massive monster tantrums." The six-step bedtime instructions are scrawled on wide-ruled school paper, detailing the biracial bunny-slippered protagonist's superior strategizing skills. If the detailed formula is rigidly adhered to, the rowdy monster will allow itself to go from a soothing ice bath to bedtime story to screeching lullaby to, finally, sleep. OHora's signature color palette and tongue-in-cheek retro illustrations with a matte finish bring Vega's uneven story to uproarious life. The sheep sandwich heading for the cavernous maw looks appropriately terrified, in contrast to the tiny terrier worrying the gigantic, furred monster's knees. From the parents (a shell-shocked black mom cradles her cringing white husband) to the exuberant grizzly-sized, pom-pom-sporting, rainbow-striped monster, the delightful characters revolve around a no-nonsense, brown-skinned child rocking her own pom-pom 'do. Regrettably, Vega tries too hard to be cute. There is a game of "toss-the-slime-ball," the information that "monsters hate milk unless it's sour and green and smells like dirty underwear," and instructions to "read the freakiest, creepiest, scariest story from your bookshelf—screaming where appropriate"—it's all just too much. A few moments shine, but all in all an overstuffed effort. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews