The Monster Books of… – book review

Over the Christmas holidays we were lucky enough to receive two books from My Little Big Town (MLBT) to review, both of which are perfect for early readers.

‘The Monster Book of Colours’ and ‘The Monster Book of Numbers’ are from a series written and illustrated by MLBT’s founder, Calvin Innes, who’s a dad himself. The publishing house, based in Yorkshire, prides itself on producing books children WANT to read, so you’ll find lots of monsters and creepy crawlies, along with the odd pirate, in their books.

Nicholas loves both his ‘The Monster Book of…’ books. They’re a good size for small hands (16cm x 16cm), with lovely thick glossy paper. I love how the wonderfully fun illustrations take up the whole page (actually it’s a double-spread for each colour or number) with their vibrant colours.

The monsters in both books have fantastic names such as Squiddlepuss and Twiddlypuff, which Nicholas loves repeating. They’re more silly-looking than scary and sometimes even cute.

The books are a quick read (perfect for readers with short attention spans!), but also have lots of scope for engaging your little ones in more than just identifying the colours or counting. I love the double-spread of monsters at the end of ‘The Monster Book of Colours’ which has monsters from the other books in the series; we’ve had lots of fun trying to remember their names and find them in the other pages, and make up names for those we can’t.

I like that ‘The Monster Book of Colours’ also includes navy, lilac and maroon, while ‘The Monster Book of Numbers’ not only has 1-10, but also 15, 20, 25 and 50 (although two of the 50 eyes are tucked away in the spine, unfortunately).

These two books are dedicated to Calvin Innes’ son Cohen. Calvin was unable to cuddle Cohen when he was a newborn because Calvin was going through treatment for thyroid cancer which made him radioactive. Thankfully they can have lots of cuddles now.

‘The Monster Books of…’ (RRP £4.99) are currently on sale on the MLBT website as well as on Amazon, and you can enjoy more of Calvin Innes’ wonderful illustrations on his website.

If you’re a budding writer or illustrator, and not just of children’s literature, MLBT want to discover and nurture new talent – go to their website to submit your work for review.

I’ll leave you with Nicholas’ favourite monster which I think is probably mine too. Can you guess what his favourite colour is?!

Disclosure: We were given a free copy of each book to review; my opinions are my own.