Book Review: Making Friends With Frankenstein: A Book of Monsterous Poems and Pictures
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What Parents Should Know
Gross, crude, and scary poems may attract certain kids.
Packed with juvenile humor, the poems vary in silliness and
spookiness.
Common Sense Media Review
"Yes, we're having a monster party, the best you've monster
seen!" chants the cast of monsters at the start of this
monstrous collection of poems. Parents may find the humor a
little grisly, and inappropriate for younger children, but
middle-grade students will lap up these pages.
Colin McNaughton is a master of the pun--at least the kind that circulates in elementary school. "Ogre My Dead Body" is the title of one poem, and another jokes "Call the vet! I've just been bitten by teacher's pet!" In one, a child helps a monster who has literally "lost his head." Cleverly, "The Ode to the Invisible Man" is on a blank page.
Unfortunately, a few poems fall flat. The poem to send to your worst enemy is a simple list of playground insults such as "fleabag" and "pizza face." Another reads like a list of synonyms for big.
The illustrations, which alternate between double-page scenes and smaller vignettes, keep the collection light. A few feature blood and vomit, but mostly the monsters are comical, hairy, and wart covered. They help remind parents that this collection is all in good fun.
McNaughton is also the author of Suddenly!, a story about a pig who escapes a bumbling wolf. Another collection of spooky poems is The Gargoyle on the Roof, by Jack Prelutsky.
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