Picture Book from Overseas

I had enrolled for the delightful Zoe's Picture Book Swap . She has a giveaway planned, why don't you try it?

Anyway for the swap, Zoe teamed me up with Katie . I felt like I had made a pen pal ( remember those?)! Katie has a wonderful blog which marries her love for kids books and cooking. Each post is a book review and a kid recipe, based on the book read with her two boys.

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We received a gorgeous book from Katie. The Monster Who Ate Darkness by Joyce Dunbar; illustrated by Jimmy Liao and from Candlewick Press.

Anushka looked a little anxious with the story's opening. As we went along she enjoyed it and was completely charmed.

A little boy Jo Jo is afraid of the dark and expects a monster under his bed. Yes there is one but a tiny sweet little one it is.Jo Jo does not know it.

The adorable monster develops a taste for darkness and looks for it everywhere and keeps on eating it- under sandwiches and volcanoes, in caves and from the sky and the entire universe.

The moon, the birds and animals ( owls falling out of treetops and bats hanging right side up), people, all find it difficult to live in stark brightness , without darkness. The planet is lonely and sleepless. The monster ( now fat and big) hears a little boy crying since he is unable to sleep. The same little boy- Jo Jo.

The monster cuddles him and rocks him to sleep with a darkness lullaby and slowly the darkness flows out of the monster returning to the places it was taken from.

Finally you see that the boy is asleep peacefully, with the monster back to its former tiny self, nestled in the boy's tight cuddle.

The pictures are lovely and the monster never looks too sinister even when he bloats into a large one. I understand that Jimmy Liao, a Taiwanese illustrator, has used digitally enhanced pen-and-­watercolor graphics.

Here is the author Joyce Dunbar's webpage.

The fear of darkness will not disappear by reading this book but at least it might lessen. Kids may appreciate that night time is there for a reason.

Anushka is not particularly afraid of the dark but she does worry a tiny bit about rakshashas/monsters ( thanks to our Indian mythological tales) despite my telling her they are not real.

The picture of the big monster with the little flower sobbing in his loneliness made Anushka feel really sad. As per her, he did not know he was being greedy or would cause trouble when he ate up all the darkness.

But the final pages made her smile that the "sweet monster was happy and that the boy could sleep well"

She is almost able to read it herself which is a big plus for any book these days.
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I sent Katie Karadi's Little Vinayak since I felt she was unlikely to have it, it is Indian yet universal and has a CD to help them pronounce some of the Indian names And Anushka Loves it.

Also sent a book on rotis for kids from a series called Gol Guppu by Tarla Dalal, which though not a great picture book, may make for a good activity for Katie's boys.