MONSTERSONG

Displeased by his mother’s highly unsatisfactory response to complaints of monsters under the bed, a child—rather, a piglet in the bright, loosely drawn pictures—takes matters into his own trotters. Not only does Mom take her time getting to the bedroom, but instead of banishing the five unruly (and unwashed) creatures lurking down in the shadows, she cheerily invites them to climb in with the bed’s outraged occupant! Though the text of this Dutch import is rendered into notably artless verse (“The monster is green and he looks really nasty. / He rolls his eyes as I stare in alarm. / But Mom says, ‘How nice of you to visit,’ / and she cuddles him in her arm”), a familiar trope gets a clever twist here, with a crowd-pleasing kicker at the end as the monsters take the young narrator up on his invitation to check out a certain roomier bed just down the hall. A refreshing alternative to, for instance, the well-worn Mercer Mayer chestnuts. (Picture book. 5-8)