No one likes a funny-looking monster with sticking-out teeth and staring, googly eyes – especially if he lives in Cutesville, the home of cuddly bunnies and fluffy kitties. Poor Monster! Will he find happiness? He just needs one person to love him. Just when he’s given up, the very special person turns up and the world looks quite a different place. Simple and bold illustrations carry this touching story to its happy conclusion.
A message from the author and illustrator, Rachel Bright:
"Love Monster is a story that arrived in my brain unannounced. These ideas are my favourite kind. They usually come knocking when a pencil and paper is the last thing I have to hand – you know – like in the bath or halfway up a mountain or, in this case, when I was fast asleep in bed. I awoke wide eyed *ping* at 5am (this isn’t common believe me) and got up as fast as my slippers would carry me. To the dulcet tones of our dog, Elvis, snoring in his bed, I sat at the kitchen table and sketched furiously until the sun came up. As Herman, our cockerel, crowed to signal the arrival of the day, so Love Monster had arrived too.
"A few months and many hours of magical printmaking later (I did all the illustrations using an amazing technique called solar etching which involves special printing plates, lots of messy ink and big, old printing presses), I had the book in its finished form. What’s even lovelier about it now is that the drawings are made of light: Love Monster is quite literally made of sunshine…"
A heart-tingling, let’s cuddle-up-together, lightning-bolt of a picture book.
From a phenomenal picture book talent, Love Monster is a wonderfully warm and witty look at how sometimes, when you least expect it, love finds you!
It can be tough being the only funny-looking Monster in Cutesville, but this Monster is not one to hang around and feel sorry for himself, so he's off - out into the big wide world to look for someone to love him. He looks high, he looks low and he looks everywhere in-between, but it's only when he's just about to give up that he finally finds what he is looking for!
Featuring an instantly charming main character who will appeal to children and adults alike, Love Monster is a warm and witty tale about the power of taking action.
Here's an original early sketch of Love Monster:
And you can see how Love Monster was created in this fantastic video:
'Gorgeously illustrated and succinctly yet skilfully written, children will find this book very amusing.. The book acknowledges that it is sometimes difficult to share, but it is ultimately rewarding.' Little Parachutes.com
'A simple yet practical approach to the problem of sharing, ably demonstrated by big, bold, bright illustrations.' Booktrust
Author
About Rachel Bright
Rachel Bright is a wordsmith, illustrator and professional thinker of happy thoughts. She has written several books for children, including Love Monster, The Lion Inside and The Koala Who Could – winner of the Evening Standard Oscar’s Book Prize and the Sainsbury’s Book Award. Her books have sold over 300,000 copies in the UK alone and been translated into over 30 languages. She is also the creator of award-winning stationery and homewares range, The Brightside. Rachel lives on a farm near the seaside, with her partner and their two young daughters.
You can read an extended biography of Rachel by clicking here.
10 Things you might not know about Rachel Bright:
She collects alphabets and hats and has a Nissan Figaro car which everyone says looks like a matchbox toy.
She used to be an air Hostess for Virgin Atlantic, when she got to visit Richard Branson's island of Necker.
She loves nothing more than getting all inky in the printmaking studio where she’ll often work super late, when there’s magic in the air.
She lives on a farm near the seaside, which she shares with her family, their dog Elvis and a cockerel called Herman.
She’s done zillions of different jobs before becoming an author and illustrator, including owning a landscape gardening business, being a life-guard and a TV extra (she was once taken hostage by Daleks in 'Dr.Who'). Her first proper boss was Samantha Cameron, now of No.10 Downing St.
She also runs an impressively global card and gift empire called ‘the brightside’ and occasionally practices her evil laugh.
She has hundreds of stories tucked away in her studio (an occasionally messy, converted caravan) which she can’t wait to turn into books.
She once won a week-long date in Tahiti, with ‘Man of the Millenium’ featured in Marie Claire magazine (and then spent a long time living it down).
She spent six years working as a copywriter in advertising, during which time she once had to dress up as a chicken.
She runs a really long way every day and has done loads of ultra-marathons all over the world, the most recent of which include the Atlantic Coast Challenge (3 marathons in 3 days) and the Midnight Sun marathon in the Arctic Circle.
