John loves drawing monsters. Red monsters. Purple monsters. Spotted monsters. Furry monsters. Any kind of monster. And then he draws just a monster’s tail. And that takes up four big pieces of paper….Can John control his monsters? Of course, the adults think that he can but what if he can’t? A potentially threatening story is wittily told in words and pictures by Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake.
This title is brilliant and hilarious, full of monsters and disbelieving grown-ups - and back in print at last. John likes to draw monsters. Lots of them. Red monsters, yellow monsters, scaly monsters, furry monsters, even invisible monsters. Nothing but monsters! His mum and dad are beginning to worry. Then one day John starts a monster drawing that fills up a whole sheet of wrapping paper - and that's just the tip of the tail! Will this be his biggest monster ever? Or even...how long will it remain just a drawing? This is a welcome and much longed-for reissue of a favourite Hoban and Blake classic. It features a mouthwatering variety of scaly, lumpy, scary, spiky, multicoloured MONSTERS. Readers young and old squirm with delight as the witless adults fall to see what's coming...
Russell Hoban was born in Pennsylvania, USA. His parents were Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine; his father was the advertising manager of a Jewish newspaper as well as a dram guild director. Russell was thus exposed to the arts early on, and became interested in writing at an early age, winning prizes for his stories and poems during his school years.
As an adult
Russell served in the US Infantry during WWII. For a time he taught art in New York and Connecticut. He then worked as a freelance illustrator and an advertising copywriter. He began publishing children's books in 1958, and since then has published more than fifty. His picture book The Sea-Thing Child, illustrated by Patrick Benson, was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Russell passed away at the age of 86 in 2011.
