Monsters are Afraid of the Moon by Marjane Satrapi
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What We're Reading:
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Monsters, as we all know, are a cowardly lot, and nothing
scares them more than bright light: it’s like a monster disinfectant. In her new
picture book for young readers, writer and cartoonist Marjane Satrapi tells the
story of Marie, a little girl plagued by a trio of scary monsters who arrive at
bedtime to pinch her nose, pull her hair, and make freaky cross-eyed faces. The
solution Marie devises is simple and effective: she takes a large pair of
scissors, cuts the moon out of the sky, and hangs it in a birdcage in her room.
Voila! No more monsters. But there’s a problem. With no moonlight, the night is dark, and in the darkness there are rats. As blinded cats going around bumping into things, the rats are having a field day—a rip-roaring, ratty good time. And a good time for rats is a bad, bad time for everyone else. You could even call it a rat-astrophe. When the situation becomes just too much, the cats call upon their king for a solution. He calls in Marie—who’s very sorry to have been the cause of all the hub-bub but also quite apprehensive about returning to her previous state of moonless nightly monsterfication—and together the two broker a solution of surpassing elegance: Marie (the party of the first part) agrees to return the moon to its proper place (i.e., the sky), and the king of cats (the party of the second part) agrees to dispatch a valiant cat soldier to sleep at the foot of Marie’s bed as a safeguard against monsters and the many things that monsters do. And thus was forged the enduring compact between kids and cats. Satrapi, a native of Iran now living in Paris, is an acclaimed cartoonist whose black-and-white Persepolis memoirs about growing up during Iran’s Islamic revolution have become favorites all over the world and bestsellers in multiple languages. Monsters are Afraid of the Moon is her first book for children and is newly translated from French to English. The book boasts Satrapi’s simple, expressive drawings and playful sense of humor: just look at the pages of ecstatic, dancing rats and the scenes of hobbling, bandaged cats (some with canes and eye patches!), and you’ll fall in love. The story is sweet and clever and sure to be a bedtime favorite. Recommended for kids and cats ages 4 to 8 Review by Mark David Bradshaw, October 9, 2006 Read here for a review of Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood: http://www.watermarkbooks.com/review0503-003.html
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