Have You Seen My Monster?

PreS-Gr 2--Light uses black-on-white pen-and-ink illustrations for a double concept--first to seek and find a friendly monster at the county fair and second to identify the geometric shapes found there. Each spread features the monster hidden within the drawing, along with the featured shape colored in ink, sometimes just once, sometimes multiple times. The top right corner names the shape and shows its outline, from the triangle, square, and oval to the quatrefoil, trapezium, and heptagon. The Common Core State Standards require different levels of geometric familiarity across the grades, and this book may be useful in introducing the youngest students to those shapes that that they will not be required to know until second grade. The spunky, retro drawings of a curly haired, ovoid-headed little girl and her hairy monster friend send readers from the carousel to the roller coaster, serving also as a primer to an American tradition that many urban students may only meet in a book. Pair this title with Tana Hoban's classic Shapes, Shapes, Shapes (Greenwillow, 1986) for the other side of the coin...a photographic introduction to shapes in found in a city. VERDICT A fun-filled interactive outing with an unintrusive math lesson to boot.--Lisa Lehmuller, East Providence School District, RI