Hungry Monster ABC: An Alphabet Book - Hardcover

Susan O'Keefe is the author of many children's books, including Love Me, Love You and Goodnight, God Bless. She lives in Edgewater, New Jersey.

Lynn Munsinger has illustrated numerous popular books for children, including One Hungry Monster and Ogden Nash's The Tale of Custard the Dragon and Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight. She resides in Boston.

Kindergarten-Grade 2—When the creatures from One Hungry Monster (Little, Brown, 1989) visit a boy's classroom, he attempts to teach them the alphabet using school words like "apple," "book," and "crayon." But the monsters make a mess of everything, piling up the books so they can draw on the ceiling with the crayons. Things go downhill from there as the furry critters continue to cause mayhem, gulping down their sloppy sandwiches ("L is always lunchtime"), having a pillow fight ("R should be for rest time"), and chasing the teacher ("T is for Ms. Tubbins"). The narrator is at a loss for X, Y, and Z words—until his visitors call their friends X-Ray man, a yeti, and a zombie. The rhyming story ends rather abruptly with the monsters and the protagonist escaping through a window, but Ms. Tubbins grabs the boy's shoe and hauls him back in. Munsinger's watercolor-and-ink illustrations are reliably funny, and kids will giggle at the sight of the put-upon youngster trying to wrangle the monsters into order. The alphabet concept is almost secondary to the creatures' antics, though the entry and picture for W are priceless: "'W's for Wiffle ball./(In gym they'll show you how.)'/But Wiffles aren't waffles./The monsters know that now." A set of removable alphabet flashcards featuring the characters is included.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD
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