Title: Leo’s Monster

Author: Marcus Pfister

Release Date: 5 May 2020

Number of Pages: 32

Review: Thank you, NorthSouth Books and Net Galley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Leo’s Monster is a cute story about a city mouse named Leo, who visits his friend Zoe who lives in the country.

When Leo visits Zoe, he does some exploring outside and runs into a terrifying monster. He runs back to Zoe and tells her all about it, and Zoe asks him to describe it. With each part of the description, Zoe pieces together what Leo really saw, and she realizes that the monster is a friendly cow named Bertha.

The illustrations in this book were a lot of fun. With each exaggerated description that Leo gives, there’s a picture to go with it. Slowly, as he describes the tail, feet, body, etc. a picture forms, revealing what the monster is. I also liked the details in the illustrations, and how you could see the texture of the animals and grass and everything else.

I liked that this book teaches kids about putting information together to form a picture or a conclusion. I also like that it shows kids that things aren’t always what they seem. For Leo, the cow is scary because he’s never seen one before, but once Zoe introduces them and explains, Leo isn’t scared anymore.

I think that this book would be fun to read out loud to kids, especially if you let them try to guess what the monster is as Leo describes it.

Rating: 4 Stars!