Book(s) of the Week: The Monster at the End of this Book

The Monster at the End of this Book, written by Jon Stone

I know sometimes it's a little funny how I'll go from discussing very adult films and books, and then diving in to suggest some children's stories to my readers. Okay, now that I've addressed that, let's move on to the very simple and yet very classic 'The Monster at the End of this Book'.

Horror? Perhaps not to most of you, unless your parents read to you as kids. This book features as one of the favorite stories my mom pulled off the shelf every other night to read for me, not only because of her excellent voice skills (as you've no doubt heard in my podcast episode intro), but because this was a scary book. For a four-year-old.

It's quite short. And based on how the adult reads to the child, can be either very fast...or very slow. The slower the better, because it's a fantastic introduction for the little ones into the world of tension. Each page turned (of course) brings you closer to 'the monster' at the end of the book, hence the title. And each page, Grover, becomes more and more panicked. Did the premise need to be explained? I certainly hope not, because at this point my blog entry has become longer than the actual story.

So in summary, if you're a mom or a dad, please do your kids a favor and read them 'The Monster at the End of this Book', before they're too old to put 2 and 2 together before figuring out the monster's identity by the end.