Review by Booklist Review
It's time to go to sleep, but George is afraid to turn off the lights. His sister, Anna, however, marches boldly into his room. George can't go to sleep, he says, because there's a monster under the bed, and indeed there is: a tiny purple guy who can't sleep either. Layer by layer, George, Anna, and their growing contingent of monsters make their way through the house the monster under the table is afraid of the monster under the gravel, who's afraid of the monster under the dirt until they get to the monster at the center of the earth. But wait, there's nothing underneath him, so what could he be afraid of? Cornell (The Terrible Two Get Worse, 2016) uses his signature cartoon style and bug-eyed characters to great effect: the illustrations are done in a dark palette, and the house has a distinctly creepy feel, while the multihued, Muppet-like monsters are the opposite of scary. Prime material for putting nighttime fears and maybe even some kids to bed.--Reagan, Maggie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Cornell (Shark Kiss, Octopus Hug), in his first outing as author, poses an intriguing question for readers: what if the monster under your bed is equally spooked by something under him? George and his no-nonsense sister, Anna, discover that there is, in fact, a whole chain of sleepless monsters in and below their house, all wide awake at the prospect of a scarier monster underneath them. As the late-night search for the source of this insomnia takes George and Anna further and further "under" (under the floor, the room, the house, the ground), Cornell introduces a cast of endearingly sleep-deprived, Muppetlike ghouls in vignettes that are little gems of comic chiaroscuro-think Georges de La Tour with a funny bone. Finally, the ragtag retinue reaches "the center-most center... of the center of the earth," the lair of an anxious, weary, and sheepish dragon. "But you're the underest under something someone can be!" Anna says. "What's left for you to be afraid of?!" The answer-and solution-proves that empathy and bizarro logic are perfectly compatible. Ages 4-8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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