kamel622's Full Review: Sandra Boynton - Birthday Monsters
With Sammi and Jakub, two of my daycare children, having birthdays in October and November I decided to purchase another Sandra Boynton book that was befitting the event.
Birthday Monsters! is 20 page board book with a cut out circle in the cover revealing the monsters underneath.
Oh what monsters they are. We see a sleeping hippo awakened to the crashing sound of the front door at 6:00 o’clock as the birthday monsters come in to his house. They haul the hippo down the stairs and use his breakfast for confetti. But that isn’t the end of what these birthday monsters do.
”OH LOOK!” they shout.
“It’s 6:08!
YOUR PRESENT-OPENING
CAN’T WAIT!”
They’ve brought the presents they like best.
You get the wrap.
They keep the rest.
They go on to raid the refrigerator, eat the poor hippos birthday cake before he can even blow the candles out and as quickly as they came, they’re gone.
But wait, another knock, knock on the door and the birthday monster cleaning crew shows up. They fix all they messed up and when they leave they leave birthday things on the kitchen shelf.
The illustrations in this book are done in typical Sandra Boynton style, large cartoon characters with big noses and very expressive faces. Some are wearing clothing, some are just wearing a tie and birthday hat but all are silly and fun. The artwork is placed on a white background with enough detail to make us ponder each page a little while and giggle about some of the things we see. Ms. Boynton uses things like fruit loops thrown in the air for confetti, the hippo hiding in a grandfather clock and the monsters carrying a hippo dressed in pajamas and nightcap down the stairs to add to the silliness.
The text runs above and below the drawings and this book utilizes a lot of all capital, very bold words, which encourages the reader to read the text louder. I find this to be a very effective way to get me to read louder and faster and it is something that really holds the kids attention because of the pacing.
The kids love the way I get reading faster and faster and louder and then KNOCK, KNOCK on the table when the monsters KNOCK and get a sad face when the hippo realizes that the birthday cake is gone before he blow out the candles. This book really lends itself to a very expressive reading and therefore a fun time for children who are listening to it.
I asked 4 year old Sonny if he liked this book and his response was “it’s cute!” He is asking me for it daily (along with Big Pumpkin) and both he and 2 year old Cindy feel sad for the the hippo, until the last page. They both giggle as I read and say that the monsters aren’t very nice. They love the ending and I love the empathy I see them having for the poor hippo.
Workman Publishing published this book in 1993 with a jacket price of $6.95 US and $9.95 CAN.
This is a fun book for children from around 2 years and up to about 6 or 7 will delight in the antics of the monsters and it would make a great birthday book as well.
ISBN: 1563054424
I highly recommend this Sandra Boynton book as well as many others we’ve read, including:
Holidays and Celebrations - Other, Nonreligious Juvenile / Children's Fiction - Birthday monsters come to wreak havoc in extraordinarily rude ways. On...More at Barnes and Noble
You hear your door come crashing down. Those birthday monsters are in town. And they're going to wreak havoc in the most extraordinarily rude ways - w...More at Alibris
A die-cut cover opens to reveal chunky pages full of delightful dinosaurs singing, dancing, galloping, and gallivanting in a board book that celebrate...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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