Monsters Bonding!

On my quest to find and review the world’s funniest books, I’m heading back a few years to find a father and son bonding session of the monster kind.

You only have to look at the wonderful illustrations to see how much these monsters adore each other. I remember reading this to my son a few years ago, and for days after, both of us repeating lines from the book to each other and laughing. It’s a fun book for a parent to read to a child, as one monster to another.

It’s a fun and clever twist on the How much I love you books. Instead of trying to one-up each other on who loves who more, this little monster asks big monster, ‘How much do you loathe me?’

‘Suppose someday I lose my stink? What would you say? What would you think?’

Big Monster smiles and reassures his little guy that whether he is nasty or nice, kind or mean, he loathes him up, down and between.

Staying true to Monsters Everywhere

Saying that you loathe someone more than stinky socks and slimy rats may seem strange to some, but the humour and fun lies in the flip to the “I love you” tales. These are monsters, so to say I love you would undermine a monster. When read in the right spirit with young ones, the humour will outshine any negative word play.

But, what really works for me in this book is the colourful, funny and awesome illustrations that capture both the humour of the text and the love and adoration both monsters have for each other. This is a fun read for monsters 4 and up.

Title: I Loathe You
Author & Illustrator: David Slonim
Publisher: Aladdin, NY, 2012