This post is about Mostly Monsterly. Mostly.
Blogging is a funny business. For example, I started this post this way:
Halloween is just around the corner, so it’s time to recommend an appropriate holiday book for the youngsters in your life. How about Mostly Monsterly by Oklahoma’s own Tammi Sauer? Yes! Definitely Mostly Monsterly! Personally, I can’t wait to get a signed copy for my grand niece, Brooklyn.
Then I went here…
Many children’s books are about kids accepting themselves just as they are—a so very important lesson for young people since they will meet a diversity of human beings as they grow up and move through life. If they can accept their own quirks and idiosyncrasies, isn’t it easier for them to accept the oddness of others? It’s a great lesson for our young ones, and Sauer does it so well.
And since I’m a Tammi Sauer fan, and I’m obviously indoctrinating the kids in my family, I told you this:
Just last weekend, my sister read Sauer’s Cowboy Camp to my grandnephew, Tyler. It’s all about Cowboy Avery, the most unlikely cowboy in the world, who saves his fellow campers from the meanest cowboy in the world; and he does it just by being himself. Brooklyn is already a fan of Sauer’s award-winning Chicken Dance, which is about hens Lola and Marge, and how they reach their dream, just by being themselves.
And then I had a Eureka! moment:
But where Cowboy Avery inadvertently succeeds by being himself, and Lola and Marge must make a conscience decision to be themselves (because they have no other choice), the protagonist of Mostly Monsterly has to work to fit in with her monster friends without compromising her personality and unique self.
Mostly Monsterly is the story of Bernadette, a little monster who has the unfortunate quality of being… sweet. She likes kittens and flowers and loves to bake. Her monster friends are appalled by Bernadette’s goodness, and our little monster must find a way to fit in with her antagonistic buddies, and still be true to herself. The solution Bernadette comes up with is the punch line, the guffaw, the laugh-out-loud part of the book. But beyond the entertainment lies a theme that author Sauer has been playing with and expanding upon during the course of her career. What we have here, folks, is the third book in a great little trilogy about acceptance and self worth.
And then I added these distracting bold lead-ins and changed the post title before closing:
Get a behind-the-scenes look at creating Mostly Monsterly on the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog. And then go immediately to your bookstore or library and get you and your young one some Tammi Sauer reading!
I’m in love! Bawk! Bawk!
That’s right. I’m in love… with Chicken Dance, Oklahoma author Tammi Sauer’s latest children’s title. (Young Bill Young here, by the way. Kitty’s letting me bust in on her blog once again. She’s a generous soul!)
I’m a sucker for clever picture books. Reading to children is fun, but it’s doubly fun when the book’s humor can be appreciated by adults, as well. Sauer’s partner in crime is illustrator Dan Santat. You can tell this work was both a labor of love and a well-spring of creativity for these two kids-in-adult-bodies. (That’s Sauer and Santat above, getting their squawk on in the book’s end sheets.)
Chicken Dance is an against-all-odds tale that proves you reap the best rewards by being true to yourself. The plot: hens Lola and Marge attempt to win the barnyard talent show in order to capture free tickets to see famous rooster Elvis Poultry in concert. This simple concept is complicated by the duo’s quest to find their unique talent, menacing punk ducks who have won the barnyard competition every year, cows jumping over the moon, goats eating tractors, a surprise ending, and much more. The book jacket features an Elvis Poultry album cover with songs like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Wattle.” Even the authors get in on the record album parody for their book jacket flap bios.
Just an incredible package of wonder, and a great gift for the young person in your life. I’ll have another holiday book idea for kids later this week, if Kitty lets me bust in on the blog again! (Insert smiley emoticon here.)
