Things That Go Bump in the Night! Love Monster and the Scary Something by Rachel Bright

It's way past bedtime o'clock in Cutesville, and everyone was fast asleep.

Everyone, that is, except one particular monster.

Love Monster has had his nightly mug of hot cocoa, read himself a soothing bedtime story, several of them--fifteen and a half, to be exact.

But sleep won't come.

It's one of those nights. The more he tries to drift off to sleep, the wider awake he gets. Even the tick of the clock downstairs is too loud.

Then he hears another sound.

What was that?

At first it's just a slight rustling, maybe outside the house.

And then --

CReeeEEAAAaaacKKK!

Now it sounds like something downstairs!

BANG!

Then there's a new sound--something is coming up the stairs! Something with...

TWISTERLY TOENAILS!

YIKES! It's a a case of creeped out in Cutesville, in Rachel Bright's latest little monster story, Love Monster and the Scary Something (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), one that plays on all the night terrors that we all, from tots to seniors, share at one time or another, Bright makes good use of the coming-closer-and-closer trope, as her furry little Love Monster goes from hiding his head under his starry comforter to choosing to confront his scary something--a little bunny, a surprise partner in late-night insomnia.

It turns out that Love Monster wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.

Rachel Bright's Love Monster is the cutest creaturely character since Mercer Mayer's shaggy Little Critter began his picture book career, and in this fourth book in her series, Bright's illustrations are just as monstrously adorable as ever in a story that makes the most of midnight suspense just right for the upcoming scary season, but a story which will also have kids cheering for her character's take-charge courage at the climax.

Other stories in this series are Love Monster, Love Monster and the Perfect Present, and Love Monster and the Last Chocolate.