Raymond McGrath, Have you seen a Monster?, Penguin, 24 September 2014, $16.99 (pbk) (includes CD), 32pp., ISBN 978-0-143-50599-0
Even young children can enjoy (in a scary sort of way) the idea of the monstrous! “Look out kids,” the storyteller says when they look at the front cover, “I think it is a monster. Its red and its huge. Is it coming to get us?” Well…Elliot and Emma-Jane Rose are little detectives who find all sorts of things. From freckles on Elliot’s back to “something weird and slimy and gross,” they are always searching. This time, they are “hot on the trail of something really… (turn the page and guess what it is) hairy, strong and really hungry. It is a monster who is balling his eyes out because it is lost! What do the adults do? Shriek and run! What do these brave detectives do? Take it home! Hmmm. Will this work?
The illustrator here maximizes the sense of the dramatic with the use of exaggeration, confrontational angles and points of view, colour and paper engineering!
The wise parent/teacher could explore the idea of integrating “the monstrous” into a sense of a shared community by focusing perhaps on the bully and restorative justice compared to the idea of “othering”.
The picture book is accompanied by a CD that contains three songs that can be used during the storytelling process.
reviewed by John McKenzie