Humor and imagination in the children's anthology Monster Poems

¶ … children's anthology entitled Monster Poems is written by various children's, edited by Daisy Wallace and illustrated by Kay Chorao. The anthology has collected poems by various authors, all being on the shared subject of monsters. The book is targeted at young children. The book's strengths are the use of a variety of enticing and imaginative pomes that all come to life with the lively and detailed illustrations that accompany each. Although the topic is monsters, a subject that one would assume is to be scary, in reality this collection is filled with humor, making it both delightfully scary and yet wickedly funny. Thus, the end result is that it suits young children perfectly.

The poems of this collection span the sphere of bizarre and scary. In one, you can learn how to detect monster activity, while in the next the reader has an opportunity to dine with "The Monster that Ate the Universe." One of the best is "Monster Crazy," which teaches you why everyone has gone crazy for monsters.

The poems appeal to children mainly because of their humorous use of imagery and language, in such a way that the child reading the poem is easily able to create a mental picture of the absurd characters or action of the poem. For example, in the poem "I Wonder Why," the poet states, "I wonder why so many people from at me. I often wonder why. But I don't mind. I just smile back, and wink my middle eye."

This use of starting with a normal situation and question and then suddenly changing it by throwing in a line about "winking a middle eye" captures the essence of many of this anthology's poems. At first the child is presented with a mental image of an ordinary site, such as a person wondering why people are looking at them. But then, with a line such as "I just wink my middle eye," the reader is suddenly forced to alter their normal mental image. The result is the sudden creation of an absurdly funny image that, instead of being scary or grotesque, is humorous, funny and, most importantly, enjoyable.