The Monster Who Ate My Peas

by Danny Schnitzlein, Matt Faulkner (Illustrator)

Overview

This hilarious picture book from author Danny Schnitzlein will have picky eaters begging for more.

What do you dread eating the most? For one young boy, it's peas, but he's discovered a seemingly simple solution. He makes a bargain with a fiendishly funny monster who will eat the boy's peas in exchange for his soccer ball.

But soon, peas are on the menu again and with each new encounter, the monster's demands escalate. Eventually, our hero faces a daunting decision―can he conquer his loathing for peas, or will he lose his most prized possession?

Danny Schnitzlein's verse combines with Matt Faulkner's uproariously detailed illustrations to create a clever story about how far we're willing to go to avoid the things we hate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561455331
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	03/02/2010
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,069,434
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Danny Schnitzlein is an award-winning children's author whose books have been adapted into plays, and even a ballet! He studied creative writing at Eckerd College and holds a BS degree from the University of Florida. He lives in Georgia with his family and a snuggly dog.

Matt Faulkner graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and has illustrated more than forty books. Matt has taught illustration and character design courses at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He and his wife, author and children's librarian Kristen Remenar, live with their family in the lower right-hand corner of Michigan.

Editorial Reviews

"Arcimboldo meets Mad Magazine as a monster that looks like a cross between an octopus and a compost pile bargains with a young narrator willing to sacrifice his prized soccer ball, and even his new bike, rather than eat peas. . . there's a Seussian (or Clement Clarke Moore) flavor to the rhymed text. . . the rollicking rhythms and madcap, over-the-top art give this. . . [book] plenty of comic energy." —Kirkus Reviews

"The rhymes flow, begging to be read aloud. Faulkner has created a truly disgusting monster with hairy feet and icky toenails, covered with slimy vegetables, too big for the page. Children will clamor to hear this one again and again." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Although couched in bombastic rhyme and grotesque illustrations, Schnitzlein's debut simply rehashes a truism: kids will do anything to avoid eating their greens. In "Night Before Christmas" verse, the boy narrator describes three encounters with a garbage beast, whose "big bloated body was broccoli-green,/ And his breath, when he sneered, reeked of rotten sardines." When the hulking creature proposes to devour the boy's peas in exchange for a soccer ball, the boy accepts. He haggles with the monster at subsequent mealtimes, but when it tries to take his dog, he desperately gulps a pea and has a Green Eggs and Ham epiphany: "That pea didn't taste like I thought that it would./ I had to admit it. That pea tasted good!" Faulkner's (The Moon Clock) fearsome illustrations recall David Catrow's hyperbolic paintings; the bloated monster, which has purple-gray tentacles and an eggplant nose, emerges from the trash and lurks under tables. Yet suspense is controlled by the clockwork verse, which steadily advances toward the boy's revelation and the banishment of the devilish tempter. For an original approach to yucky vegetables, Yaccarino and McCauley's The Lima Bean Monster (Children's Forecasts, July 30) makes a better choice. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 1-4-Another yucky food story, this one told in rhyme. And it actually works. The narrator does not want to eat his peas, but risks losing out on dessert. Along comes a food monster that agrees to eat the veggies if the child gives him his soccer ball. That's fine until the dreaded morsels show up again a few days later. The monster drives a hard, Faustian bargain and, naturally, when the stakes become too high, the boy discovers that he likes peas. The rhymes flow, begging to be read aloud. Faulkner has created a truly disgusting monster with hairy feet and icky toenails, covered with slimy vegetables, too big for the page. Children will clamor to hear this one again and again.-Ann Cook, formerly at Winter Park Public Library, FL Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Arcimboldo meets Mad Magazine as a monster that looks like a cross between an octopus and a compost pile bargains with a young narrator willing to sacrifice his prized soccer ball, and even his new bike, rather than eat peas. The creature wears a battered top hat above its many waving eyestalks and tentacles, and there's a Seussian (or Clement Clarke Moore) flavor to the rhymed text as well: "His ears were like mushrooms, his chin like a beet, / And he balanced himself on two big stinky feet," etc. Coming to regret each treasure's loss, the lad at last screws his courage to the sticking place and samples the dreaded green stuff-only (unsurprisingly) to discover that he likes it. The monster shrivels away forthwith. Though readers may find it hard to swallow the ending (and some lines of text are swallowed by the art over which they're printed), the rollicking rhythms and madcap, over-the-top art give this successor to Sarah Wilson's out-of-print Muskrat, Muskrat Eat Your Peas (1989) plenty of comic energy. On to Faust. (Picture book. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews