Samuel and the Monster

Night-time fears are no fun for children or their parents, and this lively story presents an effective coping strategy in a fun way. Samuel is woken up every night by a big, hairy (very green in the illustrations) monster. Samuel doesn’t know what the monster wants and worse, can’t think of a way to get it to leave him alone, until the night he realises he’s had enough and – in his loudest voice – shouts: ‘There are no monsters!’. The more he repeats this, the smaller the monster gets until eventually it’s tiny and scuttles out the door with a departing ‘eep!’. Samuel celebrates his victory as he realises the monster can’t frighten him anymore. It’s a lesson that will be useful for lots of children tormented by their own monsters, and the way the story is told – all via Samuel’s viewpoint – makes it particularly empowering.