I sat down with these four books, from the Cybils shortlist, and was prepared to smile. Well. That didn’t quite happen. The first book I read ticked me off. The second, I liked better but was left wishing for a slightly different story. The last two, no complaints.

Jeremy Draws A Monster is the one that ticked me off. Jeremy is a little boy who lives in the top floor of an apartment building. He doesn’t ever go outside. In his room, you see that there are drawings around the room. Obviously, he prefers to stay inside and draw, as some children do prefer. One day he draws a very large monster – and that monster comes to life. The monster begins to demand he draw other things for him and the monster never says please or thank you. After a day of Jeremy drawing things for the monster, the monster decides to go out. And this makes Jeremy happy. He goes to bed… only to be woken by the monster banging on the door to come in. Jeremy lets him in, the monster takes his bed, and Jeremy draws him a one way bus ticket out of here. The next day, Jeremy walks the monster to the bus and sees him off… and on his way home, the children ask him to play soccer… and he does. The end.

So the moral is what? If you are one of those weird kids who doesn’t like sports or isn’t good at them and would rather stay inside and draw because you are good at that… then your art turns into a monster and takes over your life and that’s bad? And if you just went outside like a normal kid, nothing like that could ever happen? And if you’re one of those kids who doesn’t understand art or artists, then this story tells you that those kids are weird and it’s better to play outside than it is to be an artist?  (the illustrations were excellent though… in case you were wondering.)

Then there was Silly Tilly – a silly goose who drives the rest of the barnyard insane with her antics. She’s always goofing off and the other animals got sick of it and told her to cut it out. This made Tilly sad… and eventually the other animals realized that she was fun to be around and they missed her sillyness. So they apologized and Tilly went back to being an annoying clown. Well ok I added that annoying part… but that’s what it felt like, nobody learned moderation here. Because it’s true that people who are silly all of the time are fun some of the time but they are also annoying some of the time. That’s what the message should have been, not an all or nothing thing. Kind of similar to Jeremy and his monster, don’t you think?

Next, All the World – nice rhyming picture book showing kids and adults doing lots of different things. Even a storm that sends folks running for their cars is part of the world and how the world works. Nice. I like this one.

The Lion & the Mouse is a retelling of Aesop’s Fable. Lion could eat the mouse but decides not to. Later, lion is snared by a trap and the mouse comes and frees him. Nice illustrations, no words. I liked it.

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