HARRY AND THE MONSTER

Sometimes when nightmares keep children awake, no one in the family gets any rest.

When Harry wakes, screaming from a dream of a purple monster, he wakes up the whole family. He’s so frightened that the next night, he doesn’t want to go to bed. His mom suggests imagining the monster wearing a pair of pink pants on his head, saying “You’ll laugh so much that it won’t be that scary.” But when Harry dreams a pair of flowery underpants onto the monster’s head, the brute roars, “Who put these pants on my head?” Next, Harry’s father offers a suggestion, but it, too, backfires and enrages the monster. Finally, one night, his father comes up with the winning solution. Young readers will likely feel a special kinship with Harry, and they will respond to the repetition and buildup of the story. The depiction of the monster is just right: not too scary and reminiscent of Cookie Monster. The sweet, colorful illustrations offer details that will have readers giggling: When the monster gets stuck in a honey-colored jelly, he’s covered with little sticky blobs; when he topples into a Christmas tree, he ends up decorated with stars and ornaments.

Sleepy children will be inspired to invent their own very silly, very unscary creatures before they nod off to dreamland.