Frankenstein A Monstrous Parody (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Frankenstein by "Ludworst Bemonster," aka Rick Walton, is a great humorous, seasonal book to read to children when Halloween comes around. Miss Devel is the keeper of many monsters, goons, goblins and most importantly, Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the scariest monster in Miss Devel's castle and will scare anyone and anything from a pizza delivery man to rocks. One night, the castle is just too quiet so Miss Devel immediately thinks something is wrong. She goes down to the monster's room and finds a decapitated Frankenstein! She calls Doctor Bone to fix Frankenstein. Doctor Bone does what he can by screwing Frankensteins head back on and well, the rest is history...literally. I picked Halloween themed books for my reviews this week in honor of Halloween being right around the corner. This book caught my eye because of it's incredible illustrations by Nathan Hale. The front of the book especially caught my attention because of the little hidden parodies. For example, I didn't really believe that there was an author of children's pictures books by the name of Ludworst Bemonster. Secondly, there is a gray circular sticker on the front that caught my eye because it looks very similar to a Caldecott Honor sticker and I said no way did a Halloween picture book named Frankenstein win the Caldecott Award, and go figure, I was right. The sticker really says, "A CaldeNOT Horror Book," so just little creative things like that I found to be very original, cute and fun, which made this book so appealing. Some dislikes I had about this book mainly related to the plot. This book is obviously meant for a very young age because the text was not wordy or didactic at all and it included a lot of rhyming. The text wasn't necessarily bad at all because it did have a lot of comical jokes and was easy to follow for a Kindergartener or 1st grader I would say, but there wasn't a whole lot of reading. The pictures are obviously what are meant to tell the story in this picture book. The characters also weren't relatable, but once again I don't think this book was meant to be a book that children could read all year long, I think it was meant to be a holiday treat or time killer in the classroom. Summary: This book is a parody of the famous children's book Madeline. Frankenstein is the equivalent to Madeline, and he gets in the same sort of trouble with a monsterish twist. The monsters live in a castle, walk in two crooked lines, and Frankenstein even has to get surgery. This book is a great Halloween version of a classic.Theme: Halloween, parodyThis book would be great to read around Halloween time. I can't think of a particular lesson that would go along with it, but I think that in my classroom I would just read it for fun.
What do You think about Frankenstein A Monstrous Parody (2012)?
