Do you love sweet, loving books about baby ducklings or various ways to say how special you are or how lovely the world is? So do I. But I also love grotesque fiction, spooky stories, and the kind of weird, offbeat characters that draw you back in again and again. While I can get that sort of fix from any Tim Burton film or Neil Gaiman comic, it’s normally not something you can get in children’s media (though both of these creative folks have made things for children as well). Recently we ran across this amazing book called Monster Mama by Liz Rozenberg that is such a piece of media, and I had to share it with any other parents out there who want to share their love of the strange and unusual with their children in a milder, more child-friendly fashion.

Monster Mama is literally about a monster who is a young boy’s mom. It’s not a metaphor; at the end of the book, she’s still a monster, and there are witnesses to prove it! She lives in a cave that is attached to their house, providing her son some semblance of order. She does normal things, like gardening or cooking, and she has a gentle touch when her son is sick—but when she’s angry, her roar frightens the whole neighborhood.

The monster teaches her son how to jump, climb, roar, and cast spells—but only for good. One day, she sends him to buy a special dessert and he is accosted by bullies who tie him up and eat his treats. When they make fun of his mother, he, too, becomes a monster, and roars, breaks free, and chases the boys down.

His mother steps in and is ferocious looking as she makes the boys make nice, and then they have dessert together at his house. When the boys tell her son that his mother is something else, he tells them, “It runs in the family.”

The book is not only a fast but fun tale; it also features some really fun artwork by Stephen Gammell. It reminds me of the illustrations from the Scary Stories collections by Alvin Schwartz we read as tweens (in fact, when I looked it up, it turns out that Gammell did those illustrations, too!).

I think most of us moms can relate to Monster Mama and her moods—both when she’s terrifying as well as when she is loving and soothing. Is she a symbol of us all, or just a fairytale to delight kids? I guess it’s open for interpretation. Either way, the story is incredibly fun, and well worth the read—especially if you want to explain to kids how all of us, even mommies, can be “monsters” sometimes.