Monsters!

This is a good time of year to consider monsters! After all, don't they lurk in the dusky shadows of long autumn evenings?

When I was young, my sisters and I all slept in one big bedroom. Getting 6 or 7 girls to go to sleep wasn't easy. We'd want to lay in bed and talk. But being the oldest, I was responsible for seeing that everyone went to sleep by the time Dad dictated (dictated being the correct word here). There were times when Dad should have been on the US most wanted list for his ruthless (okay, necessary) setting of rules.

Finally after one long evening of trying to get my sisters to be quiet so we wouldn't be in trouble with Dad, I had a brainstorm.

"He lives in the closet, you know. That long, skinny closet right over there. The one with no light in it. That dark closet. That's where he lives.

He is tall and skinny. he wears a tall black hat and a long black coat. He has a green face, green, slobbery teeth and long fingernails. His name is Mr. Skinnyhead. Do you know what he eats? Little girls who are not asleep when they should be!"

That got their attention. Some started crying, "Don't let him get us!"

"Well, go to sleep!" I replied (heartless, wasn't I?). Another voice came from the darkness.

"I'm too scared to sleep!" Was it Mary or Theresa? Or Judy? I can't remember now, but I do remember what I told them.

"Close your eyes and breathe real slow. He'll think you're asleep and won't bother you."

Instant silence. Much deep breathing. Everyone was soon asleep.

Except me.

I was wide-awake, eyes staring into the darkness in the corner of the room, waiting for the closet door to inch open and a green face peer out at me.

I might have made him up, but that didn't stop me from waiting and watching, night after night.

Many years later my youngest son, Tommy, was between two and three years old. A little guy with big brothers, and a mother who loved to tell scary stories! Somewhere in a book we read about a creature called the SnortSnoot.

Tommy was sure the "NortNoot" lived in our bathroom--he would not venture in there until one of his brothers went in first and fought off the terrible Nort Noot. This effort was usually accompanied with loud yells, much thumping and general hooroaring. Tommy would stand at the door, trying to see the action, and shouting, "Did you get him, (insert brother's name)? Did you get him?" It made potty training an interesting and longer process than it needed to be.

Tommy also had a creature he called the Bumblethunderbeast that lived outside our house. Sometimes I'd see him peeking out the window, and I'd ask, "What are you looking for, honey?"

His big blue eyes wide, his face as somber as a gravedigger's in the rain, he would say in a whisper, "The Bumblethunderbeast. He's out there!"

I would stare out into the night with him, then tell him, "It's okay now. He's gone to bed."

Children need little encouragement to be terrified--their imaginations can do a pretty credible job with no assistance from any other media. The best thing a parent can do is to play with them, make sure the child knows that it's play and not real, and help the child be the "winner" in each imaginative encounter with a scary beast.

Imaginative storytelling and make-believe is more manageable than a movie or even a book, because the child controls the outcome. The movie, video game or book controls the outcome of their story, leaving the viewer/reader the victim of the writer's choices.

Far better in my book to make up your own monsters that you can slay with a single blow!

Of course, Mr. Skinnyhead was in that closet, I'm pretty sure, until long after I grew up and moved away...

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Here is a book list I prepared a few years ago. Some good monster reads, stories and even crafts to help you go spook yourself!

Monstrously Good Books

Legendary Monsters:

Mostly Monsters By Steven Zorn

The One-Eyed Giant and Other Monsters from the Greek Myths
By Anne Rockwell

Bigfoot and Other Legendary Creatures
by Paul R. Walker

Golem
By David Wisniewski

Fabulous Monsters
By Marcia Williams

American Monsters:

The Windigo
By Gayle Ross

Wiley and the Hairy Man
By Judy Sierra

When the Chenoo Howls
By Joseph Bruchac

Sasquatch: Wild Man of the Woods
by Elaine Landau

Monsters from Other Countries:
Yeti: Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas
By Elaine Landau

The Loch Ness Monster
By Elain Landau

Iron John

retold by Eric A. Kimmel

Just for Fun:

Monster Manual by Erich Ballinger

Monster Faces edited by Shaila Awan
Make yourself a Monster! By Kathy Ross