Hello, I'm Patrick Adams. And I'm Caroline Legere.
And this is Librarians of Littles, a podcast
where we share books, makerspace activities,
and give tips and tricks for working with students
in the library setting. And as this episode is
posted in the beginning of October, we're getting
close to Halloween. And so this week we're going
to be focused on some books that have to do with
monsters. The first book that we're going to
discuss today is a classic. It is called I Need
My Monster. It is published by Flashlight Press
in 2009. The author is Amanda Knoll and the illustrator
is Howard McWilliam. This book ended up on quite
a few state lists. Let's see, so. We've got the
Alabama State List, Camellia's Children's Choice
Award for 2010 -2011. We've got Arizona's Grand
Canyon Reader Award Picture Book Category for
2011. California's Young Reader Medal Primary
Division for 2011 -2012. Georgia's Children's
Book Award, the Picture Book Storybook for 2011
-2012. Mississippi's Magnolia Award for grades
K through two for 2013. Nebraska's Gold Sower
Award, the primary book category for 2011 through
2012. Nevada's Young Reader Award, Picture Book
Division for 2012. South Dakota's Prairie Bud
Award for 2011 -2012. Virginia's Reader Choice.
for 2012 to 2013, Washington's Children's Choice
Picture Book Award for 2011, and Wyoming's Buckaroo
Book Award for 2011 -2012. And the author for
this book, Amanda Noll, her website is just a
blank white page. There's nothing there. And
so it was hard to find a lot of information about
her. She is a writer. And apparently she lives
in Spanaway, Washington. That was all I could
find. I did some searching. She's done a couple
interviews and stuff, but she doesn't give a
lot of personal background information. She talks
about her writing process. You can actually find
for this book, you can find a YouTube video where
she talks about her writing process and stuff
like that. But there's not a lot of information
about her herself. Some of her other books she's
only ever done from what I found. She's written
about five books, and they are all part of this
monster series. The other books include How I
Met My Monster, Hey, That's My Monster, D is
for Drool, My Monster Alphabet, and Are You My
Monster? And all of those books were also illustrated
by Howard McWilliam. And the illustrator, Howard
McWilliam, left his career as a financial magazine
editor and journalist in 2005 to concentrate
on his sideline illustration of illustration
full -time. He is a cover artist for The Week
in the U .S. and U .K. and other regular clients
include Moneyweek and Highlights Magazine. He
won the U .K. Cartoon Art Trusts Award for Caricature
in 2009 and his first children's book, I Need
My Monster by Flashlight Press has won six state
young readers awards in the US and has been turned
into an animated short by University of Colorado
Denver. He has since illustrated some 20 further
picture books plus several dozen black and white
children's novels. He lives in the UK with his
wife and two sons. And some of his other books
include When a Dragon Moves In by Jodie Moore,
Elbow Grease by John Cena, What If You Had Teeth
by Sandra Markle, Hush Up and Hibernate by Sandra
Markle, When a Dragon Moves In Again by Jodie
Moore, What If You Had T -Rex Teeth and Other
Dinosaur Parts by Sandra Markle, I Love My Dragon
by Jodie Moore, and many more! The summary for
this book is that when a boy is getting ready
for bed, he finds a note from the monster under
his bed stating that he will be on vacation for
a week. The boy realizing this may be problematic
for him getting to sleep goes through multiple
replacement monsters, but continues to find reasons
those replacement monsters will not work. Finally,
the vacationing monster returns for the boy and
the boy is able to finally go to sleep. I love
this book. This book is super cute. It's very,
I love the fact that it kind of takes the, I'm
afraid of the monster under my bed idea and kind
of twists it around. Cause like the boy's like,
I need my monster to be there. Cause if I'm If
I don't have my monster to keep me afraid and
keep me in bed, then how am I ever going to fall
asleep? Kind of like that attitude is just a
unique perspective on the monster under the bed
trope. And so I really like that it's different
and kind of unique in that way. I love to read
this story out loud because I love to do different
voices for each of the monsters that are under
the bed. the replacement monsters are all kind
of unique and goofy and Silly in their own way
and so going over the top with like silly voices
for them Until you get to the boys actual monster
where then I'm I've got like the dark and gruff
voice That kind of you know, like the kid it
keeps the kids engaged and loving it the entire
time And like the kids see the silliness of the
other monsters that are trying to replace them
like the one that's like super fancy and has
his hair all combed and his nails polished and
like the girl monster with the bows and her and
like the monster that has the really long tongue
like the kids think it's all silly and funny
too. And so it's even though it's a monster book,
it's not like a scary book. which is awesome
for our younger kids because yes, they like monsters,
but like, you don't want to be the reason why
you're you're getting emails from parents saying
that that kid isn't able to go to sleep at night
because you terrified them. So this is a good
balance between the two. It's a lot of fun. It's
engaging. The pictures are amazing. The monsters,
the illustrations for the monsters are really
cool and like the different colors that are used
are bright and colorful in the darkness of the
bedroom. And just a book that I love to read
with the kids, because it's a lot of fun. And
I like I said, I love to use the voices, which
adds like an additional energy to it. The kids
think it's it's a great book. And like, once
I've read this book, the other books are Taken
off my shelf so quickly. They love the rest of
this series because it's just it's so much fun
Yeah, this is one of my favorite books too, I
really enjoy it All the things you said really
it's a really unique concept and it it does kind
of It does have monsters which the kids are interested
in but like you said it's not not in a scary
way and it kind of, I think for some kids even
that do have some anxiety relating to Halloween
in general and things like that, it kind of,
because of the way it's written and it's, you
know, the monster in this book is, you know,
kind of comforting for the boy. So it is a great
way to, for those anxious kids to kind of see
it in a different light, I guess, to kind of
put a different perspective on it so that maybe
they feel a little bit better about Halloween
in general and scary things that they, well,
things that they might perceive as scary that,
you know, maybe they don't need to be so scared
of all these things. My personal children are
extremely anxious. So books like this that kind
of give them a different perspective are really...
They truly have helped my personal children at
home to kind of ease their anxiety as well. So
I don't know. I just love it. It's a great one.
Five out of five. It's a classic for a good reason.
Yep. I agree. Yep. Yeah. It's just so much fun.
And it like the kids just get so much joy out
of the book by the end of it. It's definitely
worth checking out if you haven't read it before.
Do it this year with your kids. Worth it. It's
a good one for a makerspace activity. So I, this
is one of those things where I would pull out
and have like different tables with different
materials. So like my go -to materials a lot
of times are like Legos and the like magnet tiles
and stuff like that. And so I'd have tables with
different things like that on there. And every
table would have the same task. It would just
be what materials the children chose to use,
but I would have them design their own monster
under their bed. So if they wanted to draw it,
we'd have crayons and papers so they could draw
their monster, or they could build it out of
Legos, or they could build it with the magnet
tiles, but designing their own unique monster.
that might live under their bed that has the
things that they want their monster to have,
because so many of the monsters in the book have
unique characteristics that either made them
scary to the boy or not. And so having the kids
use their own imagination to kind of create their
own monster and what it might look like if that
were something that they were thinking about,
like they could really be creative. And it's
not just like, Just use this one thing to do
it like you can do it on paper You can make it
three -dimensional with Legos or with magnet
tiles or anything else. So I like the idea of
giving the kids the the choice and how they do
it and Just I think they you'd see some really
cool designs and some interesting ideas that
come out of that Yeah, I like that I like all
the choice that the kids get and the flexibility
they have to kind of make their own monster however
they want and you're right with this book in
particular because there's so many different
kinds of monsters like it would it's a good one
for sparking creativity in our youngest learners
because they can go in a lot of different directions
from there. Yeah. So for our Library of Littles
management tip this week, I have started this
year. I was fortunate that last year I planned
ahead a little bit. Being that I'm on an elementary
campus, this works really great. If you're on
a pre -K only campus, this will not work for
you. But if you're on an elementary campus, I
strongly suggest trying this out. Last year,
I spoke with my fourth graders at the end of
the year. and explain to them that I need some
additional help in the library because trying
to see classes all day long, get books repaired,
shelf books, purchase books, like all the other
things that have to get done in the library,
it's just there's not enough time in the day
for me to do it by myself. And so I explained
to my fourth graders that I was looking for some
help for this year. And so I had applications
for my book helpers, my library helpers. Our
campus is, they're the Cowboys, and so my library
helpers are the Bookaroos. And so they had to
fill out an application, which told me why they
wanted to be able to help in the library, what
they think the library is most important for.
I gave them, I did give them in the application,
they had to put some things in alphabetical order.
And then they needed a parent signature saying
that their parents were okay with it. And they
needed a teacher referral to say that they thought
that they would be a good student for this. I
was able to get about 12 applications turned
in. and I went through and looked at them and
kind of scored them and had some of my specials
team help me look at them and score them and
that kind of thing. And we ended up, since it
was only 12, I accepted them all and then two
of them moved. So I only have 10 this year, but
I've spent the last couple of weeks with these
students in the mornings when they come in before
the... School day officially starts but once
the doors have been opened to the campus and
they come into the library and we've been practicing
Putting books in alphabetical order correctly
and then we've moved to having them actually
show books and helping to straighten up the shelves
and like front the books on their shelves and
the fiction section that kind of thing and so
now we've gotten into a routine where they Come
in every morning for me and are helping me to
get all the books from the day before back on
shelves in the correct places Helping straighten
up the shelves after because like my day my normal
day ends with kinder and first grade In the library
checking out books, which means that by the end
of the day My shelves are looking pretty rough
and so they can come through and help me straighten
up those shelves and get the books fronted again
and ready for the next day and This coming week.
I'm gonna start Pulling them individually while
everyone else is shelving to start teaching them
how to do some simple book repairs on like Binding
and stuff like that that are falling apart like
just from wear and tear stuff not like huge big
repairs yet, but In like simple things to teach
them how to do that We're gonna be working this
year to have them help me build some displays
of books for different themed seasons and that
kind of thing. And so just getting this extra
set of hands has helped so much. Like I'm not
having to stay for two hours after school shelving
all of the picture books or, you know, during
my planning period, I could actually sit and
do lesson plans instead of shelving all of the
fiction books and that kind of thing. And so
it's been really nice to have these extra hands.
The kids enjoy it because they're helping out
the school and just they have somewhere that
they can be part of a group that's helping out.
And so it's a really fun way to build a small
little library community that's kind of taking
ownership of the library themselves and helping
to make sure that the other students in the building
have access to those books, which I'm really
loving and the kids are really loving and they're
doing such a great job. It's been awesome. And
so I highly recommend if you have the opportunity
to do something like this where your older students
can kind of come in and help out with this, definitely
recommend doing it because it's a great thing
to to give these kids an opportunity to be leaders
and to just help out. So I'm really loving it.
I love that. That sounds absolutely wonderful.
That's great. I'm glad that's working out so
well. Yes. And I wasn't sure what like I wasn't
sure how it was going to work, but it's they're
doing a great job with it. And they're like it's
it's awesome because they're there's quite a
few of them that are not afraid to ask questions.
So they're like, why is this book here? And then
we we look into it and we kind of like, so they're
getting to learn a little bit extra. In addition
to just where that like how to put books in alphabetical
order and that kind of thing. And so it's it's
been a it's a it's been a fun experience. Yeah,
that sounds like a great setup for everybody
involved. Like, yeah, yeah. And basically, we're
gonna get Working on with my office staff. We're
designing a t -shirt for them. So they'll get
a free t -shirt for helping out we're gonna do
around winter break before Winter break will
have an after -school little meeting where we
do like pizza and ice cream as a thank you for
all their help so far this semester and that
kind of stuff just to like to get them just make
sure that they understand how appreciated they
are for the help that they're giving. But yeah,
it's been awesome. That's great. That sounds
wonderful. I'm gonna have to look into that for
next year. Yes, it's and that's it. It does take
some planning in advance so that you you can
set it up for the following year. But I did it
like I I talked to the kids about it about mid
April and had the applications available. I gave
them about three weeks to collect an application
and fill it out if they wanted to and picked
them up and then I scored them and I told them
before they left for summer break whether they
made it or not and then I sent an email out basically
the week or two like during in -service week
hey if you can come up during this time I'll
give you a little training beforehand but and
worst case when you show up the first day to
help out, we can get you trained up on what needs
to be done kind of thing and kind of go from
there. And so, yeah, it's been great. It's worked
out really well. And the kids have really taken
ownership of the library, which is awesome. Good.
Well, for our other book today, we're going to
talk about Frankenstein. It's another one that's
a little bit older, but I feel like this one's
still maybe not quite classic, classic -ish,
close to it. It was published by Little Brown
and Company in 2013. The author is Samantha Berger
and the illustrator is Dan Santat. This book
got the Iowa Goldfinch Award for 2015 and Samantha
Berger has written over 100 children's books.
She has also written quite a bit for television
and has been nominated for five Emmy awards.
She is currently writing for PBS Kids and has
contributed to some of the shows over there like
Carl the Collector, Donkey Hody, and Sesame Street.
She currently lives part time in New York City
and part time in Santa Monica. Some of her other
books, really there's too many to list because
there are over 100, but A few of the more notable
ones are G is for gratitude illustrated by Ann
Shen. What if illustrated by Mike Chirado back
to school with Bigfoot illustrated by Dave Pressler
and Monsters New Undies illustrated by Tad Carpenter.
And then this particular book, Frankenstein,
does have a couple of other books in this. I
guess it's a whole series now. The series kind
of came about a little bit later, about 10 years
after it was published. But there's Trick or
Treat, Frankenstein. There's a Valentine's one
that I can't remember the name of right now.
Might be like one more. Yeah, I think I've got
like three or four of them in my in my campus
library, and they're always popular with the
kids. They love them. So they are. They're always
fun. And so the illustrator for this book is
Dan Santat, who is a Caldecott award -winning
artist who grew up in Southern California and
graduated from the Art Center College of Design.
Santat is the creator of the animated series,
The Replacements, and he lives outside of Los
Angeles with his wife, two kids, and many, many
pets. Some of the books that Santat has Illustrated
include Drawn Together by Min Lee, Endlessly
Ever After by Laurel Snyder, Lift by Min Lee,
A New Day by Brad Meltzer, The Misfit Series
by Lisa Yee, No More Poems, A Book In Verse That
Just Gets Worse by Rhett Miller, Oh No or How
My Science Project Destroyed The World by Mac
Barnett, Dude by Aaron Reynolds, and the Ricky
Ricotta's Mighty Robot Series by Dave Pilkey.
Some of the books that he has written and illustrated
himself include A First Time for Everything,
The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend,
After the Fall, How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up
Again. And in this book, a boy has a bad day
and turns into Frankenstein. And throughout his
day, he can really only utter There's a lot of
really fun sound effects through there because
he's making his fun Frankenstein noises the whole
day. It kind of shows how, I don't think it actually
is in one particular day actually now that I'm
thinking about it, but it does show him, you
know, cold, like all cold and wet and trying
to trick or treat and he's kind of cold and miserable
and then getting like toothbrush for his. Tricker
when he's trick -or -treating and he gets all
cranky. So naturally he has to groan and all
that Anyway, it kind of follows him through these
different scenarios that are making him really
really cranky and I like this one in particular
Because it's just a regular boy who just gets
really cranky and the illustrations are kind
of amazing with it's got Santa's signature style.
That's like anime adjacent it's kind of Probably
because he is of Asian descent like he's got
that awesome style that's just kind of a blend
between like traditional like American animation
and anime and They're just really lovely pictures
and I love that. It's a Just a regular human
boy who just gets cranky over and over and over
and over again and it kind of shows him drooling
and it kind of looks kind of Frankenstein esque
and kind of just shows him having his horrible
mood and then at the very end, he sees another
Frankenstein and they both kind of snap out of
it at the same time and they start giggling at
each other because they're both realizing how
really silly they are for being so cranky about
every single thing all day long. And I just love
at the end how you can see. He is just a normal
boy. And it's just, it's really about emotional
regulation. So I like that it's, I mean, it is
about a monster, kind of, I guess, but not really
because it is just a normal little boy. But I
love that it's, you can focus so much on it.
Like you can go in the Halloween direction with
it because, because of the monster. that they
are calling him a monster, more or less, when
he does get that cranky and kind of shows him
in his terrible mood. It's got great visuals
for showing him in his terrible mood. But then
it also, you can talk about, you know, what can
you do to regulate your mood? How can you, like,
nobody wants to feel that cranky. Nobody wants
to just groan like that and... not even be able
to use words, they're so upset. So how can you
get out of that bad mood? It's a great way, like
you could really go in either direction with
it. I do tend to like to do this one during the
Halloween season in general though, and do this
one as kind of a monster -ish kind of a book.
I like that it's like it is monster, but again,
it's another one that's not like a scary monster
because it's about a little boy. It's like, it's
nothing. that that would cause anxiety or make
any kids scared, but it's still enjoyable enough
for everybody involved. So I really like this
one a lot. I think there is a reason that it's
got, you know, sequels now, you know, a decade
that were published like a decade after the first
one was made. It was just that popular that it
kind of kept coming back. And if you did want
to do it around Halloween, it does have that
trick -or -treat crankinstein book that goes
along with it that's kind of, and it's still
in that one too, crankinstein is still being
crankinstein and still getting cranky through
the whole thing. Like he starts out happy and
like he looks like a normal boy and then he gets
real cranky real fast and then, you know, he
sees all the other crankinsteins and feels better
at the very end. So, I mean, you could do two
books with it if you wanted to, but I enjoy this
one a lot. it's a lot of fun agreed this is a
great book i love it the kids really really enjoy
it like i said so many of them check out the
whole series and so there's definitely reason
for it because they're just so good and the pictures
are amazing and it's just so much fun so i agree
great choice it is it's really enjoyable um for
usually During Halloween, I do have a week where
we do monsters, and this is one of the books
that I do. And I do, I also have kids make monsters
in the library, but I do it a little bit differently.
I think for this one, I enjoy doing it. I usually
give the kids like a blank piece of paper that
has like a monster outline, but it's not really
a monster outline. It's just like more like a
big blob with feet. And it doesn't really have
a particular head or anything on it. Like I have
my own paper that I just make copies of. But
it's vague enough that the kids can kind of color
it in however they want. I just give them crayons
to make their monster however they want. And
I show them like, I personally like draw like.
five different examples for them so they can
see different kinds, so they don't get stuck
on any one kind of monster, just so they have
some variety there. And then I give them stickers
for eyes and a mouth, and that kind of, that
part, the stickers for the eyes and the mouth
kind of brings it to life a little bit better,
because it doesn't really matter, I've found,
how they color it. If you put those, if you just
put sticker eyes on there, and that sticker mouth,
it doesn't even really matter where they go because
they're meant to be monsters. So they could go
anywhere. It doesn't have to be in like a traditional
place or anything. And that kind of brings it
to life and really makes it look like it's actually
supposed to be a monster, no matter their motor
skills or how they've designed it themselves.
And you can kind of tell what it's meant to be.
And then I usually... have them try and name
their monster as well. And then I write it down
for them just because it's kind of fun to see
what kind of things that they come up with because
it's some interesting things. Yeah, that's awesome.
I love that. That's a great idea. I love that
they get to color it in, but then you just give
them the stickers. They can put them wherever
they want them to go and just brings it to life.
That's so cool. It does. It's really cute. The
kids really like it a lot. That's actually one
that they a lot of times we'll ask for again
like the following week because they just enjoy
it that much. Cool. Yeah. Well thank you all
for joining us today on this episode of Librarians
of Littles and we hope you found some fresh ideas
for inspiring our young readers. Please be sure
to subscribe and connect with us on social media.
Happy reading! Thank you for listening to this
episode of Librarians of Littles. We hope that
you've enjoyed it. Check back each Wednesday
for a new episode. Librarians of Littles is a
podcast produced and hosted by Patrick Adams
and Caroline Legere. Editor, Patrick Adams. Our
theme song is performed by JD Adams. You can
follow us on Instagram at Librarians of Littles.
You can follow us on bluesky at littleslibrarian
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