Monster Melee': Romping Monsters Stomping Monsters by Jane Yolen

MONSTERS IN THREE-LEGGED RACES

FALL UPON THEIR MONSTER FACES.

Everybody is out and about at the park for a monster mash on the playground--stretching, catching, twirling, hurling, tumbling and jumping rope, teeter-tottering and sliding on slides.

A group of critters, some with horns and some with googly eyeballs on stalks atop their heads play ball and have a ball in the park until the hot and sweaty crew get too rough and ready and run out of monster steam.

They slurp up water from the fountain with a gulp and some growls and cool then down with monster-sicles, and after some respite, a suitably endowed four-eyed monster-sitter imposes some monster manners until they all say " sorry" and lumber away with their party balloons.


Mistress of vocabulary-building preschool rhymes Jane Yolen has a new story ready for the scary season for the youngest monster fans, her Romping Monsters, Stomping Monsters (Candlewick Press, 2013). Rambunctious but never scary, her active critters star in the story, while Kelly Murphy's soft and rounded rowdies offer nothing to fear while providing plenty of popular monster fare. Pair this one with Yolen's earlier entry, Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters, for a duo of monster stories that won't keep a preschooler (and thereby the parents) awake.