How to Teach a Monster

What happens when a big furry monster no longer wants to be scary? How can he figure out what his other talents are?

In this installation of Sue Fliess and Simona Sanfilippo’s Magical Creatures and Crafts series, an unhappy monster is hoping to get out of the scaring business. But it’s all he’s ever known. So one day he realizes the key lies in learning a new skill. And who better to teach him something new than a group of kind and patient kids?

The kids agree to help him and offer to teach him a number of things--and he chooses baking a cake. The story follows the monster as he learns how to bake and decorate. The journey includes funny monsterly snafus, but in the end he makes a monster of a cake and is proud to have learned and changed. Kids will delight in the monster’s trials and errors, and cheer him on when he persists and finds success.

Fliess’s bouncy read-aloud rhyming text and Sanfilippo’s energetic, whimsical illustrations will bring joy to young readers as they watch the children exercise patience with a monster who is just a little bit self-conscious and clumsy. Also included are guides for teachers and parents about popular monsters in stories and media, as well as instructions for making a monstrously fun and delicious cake!

Sue Fliess is the author of over fifty children’s books including other books in the Magical Creatures and Crafts Series: How to Help a Cupid, How to Trap a Leprechaun, How to Track an Easter Bunny, How to Meet a Mermaid, How to Find a Unicorn, How to Trick a Christmas Elf, How to Hide a Turkey, How to Spook a Ghost, and How to Train a Tooth Fairy, the Beatrice Bly series, the Kid Scientist series, Sadie Sprocket Builds a Rocket, Mary Had a Little Lab, and more. She lives in Northern Virginia with her family and loves to travel.

Simona Sanfilippo is a children’s book illustrator who lives and works near Turin, the magical town in the north of Italy. Lots of green hills and mountains have surrounded her since childhood and both of them have a big place in her heart, a northern one that loves oceans and snowy lands too. When she lets her pencils have a break, she loves reading about Celtic legends, creating cute handmade creatures, and having a walk into the woods discovering trees and Mother Earth’s gifts.