Not So Scary!: There Are Monsters Everywhere by Mercer Mayer

"There were monsters in my house. They would hide when my mom was around.

Dad said there weren't any monsters, but he was WRONG!"

After successfully showing kids how to dispatch a nightmare in the closet, alligators and monsters under the bed. and a "something" in the attic, Mercer Mayer takes a crack at handling ubiquitous monsters who may be just about everywhere in his bugaboo- banishing book, There Are Monsters Everywhere.

The chubby, rumpled little boy in Mayer's story knows the monsters are there but bravely soldiers on through his daily tasks, carrying out the trash, taking his nightly shower, and climbing the ladder to his top bunk despite the fairly silly-looking monsters he spies lurking in the shadows or imagines waiting for him just on the other side of the shower curtain or in the lower bunk (monsters are afraid of ladders).

Like Mercer's other protagonists, he takes matters boldly into his own hands--and feet, in this case. Spotting a handbill advertising karate classes, he realizes that he can "learn all kinds of scary moves" and he does. Bolstered by the ability to break a board with his bare hands, he karate-kicks the trash cans, punches the shower curtain, and frightens away the bedroom monster with his ferocious positions. He even faces the dark and fearsome basement ("I didn't want the monsters down there to think I was letting them off the hook!").

"Monsters everywhere? I don't care!"

Grownups know that the real scary things of life are nothing like Mayer's lumpy, big-eyed, greenish monsters, but we also know that real life take some courage, some strength to face our fears and to face them down with our own good sense and smart moves. Mercer Mayer's books are cute and funny, but their positive theme shines through the picture book charm and, we hope, stays with kids long after they put away childish things.