What do kids want...? Monsters!

What do kids want? Monsters!

One theme that comes up again and again when I’m chatting to kids while helping at the local library is… Monsters! They can’t seem to get enough of them. Funny ones, scary ones, friendly ones… If I ask children which are the favourite of the books they’ve been reading, time and again the books with monsters are the winners.

Don’t be silly Sarah, didn’t you know? There’s no such thing as a Gruffalo! Hah, well that’s what the grownups might say. But every child knows that monsters really do exist and they're lurking under the bed and behind the wardrobe, just waiting for the right opportunity to jump out and pounce.
My own childhood monsters didn’t just hide under the bed. They actually crept inside... or they would have done so if I hadn’t had a night time routine of pulling the bed sheets back to check before I went to sleep each night. I fooled them, see?

So given the actual existence of monsters, what better place to encounter them and learn how to fight them than in books? If anyone can recommend a literary monster or two, please send them my way.

Well, perhaps don’t actually send them my way. Not the scary ones anyway. It’s hard enough getting to sleep during the hot summer nights without having to worry about what might be about to chew off a toe or two…