A Monster wrote me a Letter

ABOUT THE BOOK
FAMILY ACTIVITIES

A Monster wrote me a Letter

text and illustrations: Nick Bland

The boy receives a letter informing him that a monster will visit him. So, he is busy preparing to receive him, not knowing that the monster is worried about his reaction. This is a beautiful and humorous book about the funny paradoxes that prejudice creates, about accepting the other, and celebrating what unites us instead of what separates us.

Family Activities

This comic book helps children overcome fears of stereotypes and preconceived notions, and suggests an approach to dealing with the stranger, the different, and the mysterious by welcoming, recognizing, embracing, and including them.

Video

Dear parents,

Our entertaining story begins when a monster writes a letter to his cousin who lives under a boy’s bed, telling him that he is coming to visit him. But the message accidentally reaches the boy, and he thinks that the monster is coming to visit him instead. So, he welcomes him and begins to prepare for his visit. The child has many thoughts and suspicions about the monster and his qualities, just as the monster has suspicions about the boy and how he should behave with him. They both try to be considerate to each other’s needs and desires, until they meet and become friends.

Family Activities

Let’s talk
Drawing the monster: Before reading, we can ask the children to draw a monster, and describe its shape and colour, and ask: What scares us about it? How does it live? Which languages does it speak? When do we see it? Then we can read the story and compare between the monster we imagined and the monster in the story.
About our desires and tendencies: Both the child and the monster were sensitive to each other, and each got to know the other’s desires and needs while preparing for the meeting. We can follow the child and the monster in the story and learn about what each of them wanted and required and how they prepared for the meeting. We can ask our children: How do we prepare to receive a guest?
About Preconceptions: We can follow the thoughts that the child and the monster had about each other and talk about what they found in reality. We can ask our child about our perceptions of others. How are they made? Is our perception of others always correct? We can compare preconceived notions with reality.
On friendship and difference: The monster and the child are different, but they manage to become friends. We can ask our child: Do you have a friend? How are they similar to you? How are they different from you? What are the things that you two do together? What are the things that both of you do alone?
Let’s act
We impersonate the characters of the story: “the child and the monster” and act them out. We can invite our child to think, feel, speak, and express themselves in the same way.
Let’s create
We make masks: As a family activity, we make funny monster masks.
Let’s communicate
We can write a letter: The power of the letter stands out in the text. We can help our child to write a letter in which we express our opinion about the book, and we send it via e-mail to the Al Fanous Library project.
Enjoy your reading!