The Only Monster - Matt Coyne - ★★★

AUTHOR: Matt Coyne

GENRE: Children's Picture Book.

PUBLICATION DATE: March 18, 2025

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A picture book that focusses on the feelings of an only child. Good use of a variety of monsters, but the message itself is somewhat vague and weak. The illustrations are cute, but I wanted the story to be better handled.

Plot Preview:

In the monster town of Bonglibod, Little Monster lives happily with her mom and dad. However, things change on class photo day, when Little Monster realises that every other child in school has at least one sibling. She’s the only child to be an “only child”.

On the way back home, Daddy Monster sees his daughter looking glum. When asked the reason, she replies that their family is an odd one as it has only three members, and goes on to offer plenty of examples of large families in Bonglibod. How will Daddy Monster tackle this issue? (Well… not by making lovey-dovey eyes at Mommy Monster in a bid to create more siblings for Little Monster! That’s not picture-book material, and you know it!)

Though I often opt for picture books based on the title, the cover art and the theme, this is the first time I have picked one based on the author. I had loved Matt Coyne’s contemporary adult fiction novel, ‘Frank and Red’, so when I saw this picture book showing his name as the author, I didn’t bother to check anything else.

Good decision? The rating gives you that answer. 🤔

The story was quite good until the class photo scenes. However, the lengthy conversation with Daddy Monster didn’t work much for me. Further, the explanation he provides his daughter is kinda in the grey zone – I liked a part of what he said, but not all of it. Some parts of his rationale weren’t convincing enough for my liking.

The story is written in simple rhyming text using the ABCB rhyme scheme, one of the easiest schemes to read aloud. However, a few of the rhymes feel very forced.

The myriad monster names are almost tongue twisters. They will make children giggle, but good luck to the parents reading these names aloud! It would be a fun challenge to get them all right on first attempt. 😄

On that note, every single monster family in Bonglibod had a whimsical name, but our leads are only Daddy, Mommy, and Little Monster. These sound so boring in comparison to fun monikers such as Jooberwibbly and Bottyblarp.

I loved the illustrations! There are oodles of monsters in various shapes and sizes on each page. Even the birds in the background are suitably monstrous! I am quite amazed at how the illustrator manages to keep the monster families similar to each other in appearance while still offering individual monsters some differentiating features. The school photographer’s camera was quite antique. I wonder if today’s smartphone-photo kids will understand what that device is meant to be. 😁

This book anyway has niche appeal. It would click mainly with the families having a single child and not planning to add any more to the brood. So if you have an only child and they too feel like their family is odd, you could give this a go. It ought to work well for little ones aged 3-6.

My thanks to Quarto Publishing Group for providing the DRC of “The Only Monster” via Edelweiss Plus. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.