Here Be Monsters!

I was immediately drawn into Here be Monsters when I saw it on a shelf in a local bookstore. It is captivating, seeming to meld the curious Victorian imagery of Edmund Gorey with the density and endlessness of a 100 year old Sears Roebuck catalog. But I have to be frank. My son has a very active imagination (read "nightmares") and I was not that interested in providing more grist for that mill! So let me clear the air here. The only monsters are humans, and while they are dastardly and mean, they are not terrifying. Just the same mean, self-centered, narcissistic jerks that life is full of. The so-called monsters in this book (boxtrolls, cabbageheads and the like) are charming, caring, thoughtful, and endearing. But not scary. Please buy this book. Buy five copies. Buy ten. If only that you will bless five or ten children (so far I have tested on a five and a ten year old) with a sweet, fun, clever, creative romp through Ratbridge.

I read this book aloud to my children who are six and eight, they were entranced! As we got closer to the end we added extra reading times to move us along. It was a delight to read out loud as opposed to some of the other books my children have chosen. We can't wait for the next volume!

I bought this book for my 9-year-old son based on the comment that is printed on the back of the book's cover. The comment reads: "My son is eleven and has never read a real book in his life. A friend gave me the book and my son just sat down and read it over the weekend. A miracle!" I thought, yeah right, her son probably doesn't have video game controllers glued to his hands like my son. My son thinks that consulting his favorite web sites online constitutes a good reading experience. Anyway, I decided to get the book and see if it would capture his attention, but frankly didn't hold out much hope. He has never wanted to read independently. Well, I am here to say that there is something unique about this book because it truly is the first one that has sucked him into its world. For the first time, he is willingly doing his reading time for class and even going beyond this. He is a little more than half-way done with the book and is enthralled with it. I'm already getting worried about what we'll do when he finishes it. Can the author quickly get the next volume out? Until the next volume comes out, I'm afraid we're doomed to slide back into mediocre reading that involves a cursory look at the latest gaming magazine. Go ahead and try this book if you have a recalcitrant reader. I hope you have the same success that we have had and that it is enjoyed as much as it has been by my son.

My 9 year old son hates to read, considers it torture of the worst sort. When his teacher sent home a reading log which demanded 350 pages for an "A", I thought- "Well, an "A" would have been nice." Then, on a trip the same day to the library where above-mentioned son usually spends his time on the computer games, I saw "Here Be Monsters", with the picture of a Boxtroll on the front. It's a monsterously sized children's book, at 508 pages, but I thought "What the heck, it's worth a try." Well- we're doing at least 1/2 hour a day. What joy! He laughs, he reads, he laughs, he refers to the Johnson's Taxonomy, he READS! Now I have to buy the darn book. Praise the Lord!

I'll begin by confessing my ignorance regarding this book's title. When I first picked up, "Here Be Monsters!", I was unaware of where this sentence came from. With some quick research I consulted a reliable source (reliable source = my husband) and found that this was the term written on uncharted waters on old maps. Should a ship fail to return from some portion heretofore undiscovered on the map, the mapmaker would whip out that old phrase, "Here Be Monsters", to warn future adventurers. I mention all this because I think author Alan Snow is a genius. For wild, wacky, unimaginable fun paired with ridiculous horrors, "Here Be Monsters!", cannot be beat. Impossibly British and a riveting read, this is probably one of the best books to swim across the Atlantic this year. I can honestly say that neither you nor your children will ever come across a book quite like this again. How to begin? Well, there once was a boy named Arthur who lived underground with his grandfather. This kind of life has its problems, of course. To get food, for example, Arthur must climb out of the underworld and use his grandfather's leather-winged technology to fly about the town scavenging for food. One night Arthur gets wrapped up in the affairs of some particularly shady characters. Long ago the evil Cheese Guild held the town of Ratbridge in its iron fist. Since then, the guild supposedly died out after the Great Cheese Crash. On this day, however, Arthur spots some former guild members hunting slow moving wild cheese (a cruel sport) just outside of town. Before he knows what's happened to him the nasty Archibald Snatcher has stolen Arthur's wings and all holes to the underworld have been blocked up. Fortunately for our hero, he joins up with a motley crew that includes a retired lawyer, several boxtrolls (trolls that wear boxes), a cabbage head (pretty much what it sounds like), and a crew of former pirates who have turned to a life of laundry. With their help, Arthur must defeat the evil not-so-defunct Cheese Guild from committing a horrible revenge on the town of Ratbridge. But that little description doesn't even begin to cover half the amusing and interesting things spotted through out the book. I haven't told you how the fashionable ladies of Ratbridge all have buttocks of different shapes and sizes (hexagonal being the most interesting). I haven't mentioned an insidious plot that involves tiny underground dwellers and how they became so small. There was no mention in my summary of the crows who love to play music but are horrendously poor at it. And what about the tribe of underground women raised by rabbits who are simply referred to as (wait for it...) The Rabbit Women? Snow packs in these new facts, funny stories, and droll little details with a frightening efficiency. And whether or not you are familiar with your Dumas, kids and adults alike will love meeting the poor Man in the Iron Socks, imprisoned under the former Cheese Hall.