Leonardo the Terrible Monster written and illustrated by Mo Willems

I love Mo Willems!  I seriously think this man is an early childhood genius because so much of what happens in his books is developmentally appropriate for younger kids. His use of minimal text per page is perfect for shorter attention spans. His illustrations often have really dramatic facial expressions, making them ideal for discussion about emotions, for building empathy, and for making social predictions. Plus, all those dramatic illustrations make it really easy for the story reader to act out the role (try reading any of the pigeon books without becoming a frazzled pigeon—it’s impossible!).

His illustrations are also really fantastic for art lessons because they can be reproduced pretty easily by younger children and grown ups alike. (example: how to draw the pigeon in 10 steps)

The book: Leonardo the Terrible Monster is a really fun and quick read. The book centers around Leonardo who can’t seem to scare anyone, making him a terrible monster. He researches and decides to scare Sam, who is supposed to be a scaredy cat. Leonardo doesn't really successful scare Sam but instead finds out that Sam is really upset about a lot of things. In the end, Leonarado decides to be Sam’s friend.

I love the use of “space” in this book, from a visual standpoint as well as literary one.

There’s only a sentence or two on each page (with the expection of the page where Sam screams about why he's crying!) The illustrations are just the characters on muted colored backgrounds. Because of this I think expanding on the book while reading it is pretty natural, such as acting out of the motions of events (like creeping up on an unsuspecting boy). 

The use of space also allows for conversations about the book. It allows for a pause to ask your students questions about the story (such as “How do you think Leonardo feels after hearing why Sam was crying?”) 

This book easily kept the focus of all 10 of the toddlers in one of my art classes. They especially loved the one page in this book where Sam lets loose a torrent of words:

(If you are reading this book to a group of kids, look over this page beforehand! It can be a doozy if you read it cold!)

Springboard for lessons: This book can be used for lessons about emotions. Preschool students can be given materials to make monsters and encouraged to make different facial expressions for their monsters (happy, sad, angry, etc.)

This book can also be used to discuss friendship. Students can be asked "What makes a good friend?" or "Who are your friends?". Younger students can illustrate their answers with teachers helping to create a sentence describing their answers.