MONSTERS NEVER GET HAIRCUTS

Monsters can’t get haircuts, play the piano, or wear nail polish.

There’s plenty of other things that these wild-looking, otherworldly beasts can’t do. A many-eyeballed monster sits on a couch watching television. “Monsters don’t wear glasses,” the text states. A giant creature with long arms bursts out of a car, steering wheel dislodged: “Monsters can’t drive.” And so the pattern continues page after page. Some of the monsters are silly—a Loch Ness–esque sea serpent who can’t swim sports a flowery inner tube. Others skew a bit more playfully frightful, like a toothy, all-black one who isn’t afraid of the dark. The final page shows a child with skin the white of the page snuggled peacefully in bed after realizing that monsters don’t do any of these things because they don’t exist. Translated from French, the spare text is effective, allowing readers to linger on Boudgourd’s wonderfully beastly oil paint and pencil illustrations. No two look similar, and each is a little eerie, though nonthreatening. The majority of the color is used on the monsters; the background items and humans are rendered in pencil. The concept that these creatures can’t do what humans do because they aren’t real is a fresh take and potentially reassuring to young readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

This look at monsters is fun, original, and even a bit soothing.