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midge's monster magic
Is Monster Magic scary stuff? Midge hopes not, because the monsters just carried her away!
When Midge arrives at the monsters’ party, she finds a new world of wonderful things, sure to make her boring pond life MUCH more exciting.
She sails across the sky on her beautiful new balloon, eager to bring the monsters’ magical things to her friends, but nothing goes quite as she planned. Can Midge overcome her challenges and learn to make her own magic?
This beautiful picture book is full of humor and adventure, and teaches kids that with music, dance, and creativity they can make their world magical.
When Midge arrives at the monsters’ party, she finds a new world of wonderful things, sure to make her boring pond life MUCH more exciting.
She sails across the sky on her beautiful new balloon, eager to bring the monsters’ magical things to her friends, but nothing goes quite as she planned. Can Midge overcome her challenges and learn to make her own magic?
This beautiful picture book is full of humor and adventure, and teaches kids that with music, dance, and creativity they can make their world magical.
32 pages, Paperback
Published September 3, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 23, 2021
Make your own kind of music
Mama Cass told us to “sing your own special song”, and that’s exactly what author and illustrator Rachel Dutton has done. The enchantment in her preschool picture book, Midge’s Monster Magic, doesn’t arise from the narrative but from the charming, vivid drawings that bring Dutton’s story to life.
Midge is a pre-teen frog, although not immediately identifiable on the first page. Is Midge the potentially wasted frog on the log? Is Midge the pot-bellied frog sat on the bank? Is Midge the waterfall-guzzling frog in the lake? Perhaps Midge is the smaller frog, crouched at the bottom of the next page. But no, that’s a turtle, not a riverbank. Frustratingly, the first two pages, beautiful though they are, have overtones of “Where‘s Wally” rather than magic trick. But this is an adult view, and the kids loved it, pointing out the flies and the flowers, already discovering the magic in Dutton’s book.
When Midge discovers the monster, it is one of the scariest things I have seen in a children’s book. It is part smug grimace, part eco-terrorist and entirely self-centred. Yes, the monsters are our children; however, Midge is too agile to stay captured. As with so many similar stories, our protagonist covets what others have and is determined to take the human leftovers back to her pond.
All the other frogs look so awfully sad when Midge returns with cheese poofs, Barbie doll clothes and scraps of latex balloon. Fortunately, none of the monsters’ magical things has the desired impact, and Midge realises she can instead show her fellow frogs how to make monstrous noises and bejazzle the pond with minimal accoutrements.
Dutton’s genius is her bold use of contrasting colours, which will mesmerise your children. Her quasi-neon palette, pitched against brilliant whites and deepest purples, is part epic computer game background, part mainstream modern art, and it works spectacularly. Her illustrations are relatively abstract yet sufficiently well-rounded that when Midge hides under a rock and cries, we can understand her pain. But rest assured, her friends don’t let her wallow for long, and she is soon having the best time of all.
It feels like there is a slight environmental message hidden beneath the glorious illustrations (don’t leave litter out for froggie youths to take to their pond), but the message is clear: make your own kind of music.
Mama Cass told us to “sing your own special song”, and that’s exactly what author and illustrator Rachel Dutton has done. The enchantment in her preschool picture book, Midge’s Monster Magic, doesn’t arise from the narrative but from the charming, vivid drawings that bring Dutton’s story to life.
Midge is a pre-teen frog, although not immediately identifiable on the first page. Is Midge the potentially wasted frog on the log? Is Midge the pot-bellied frog sat on the bank? Is Midge the waterfall-guzzling frog in the lake? Perhaps Midge is the smaller frog, crouched at the bottom of the next page. But no, that’s a turtle, not a riverbank. Frustratingly, the first two pages, beautiful though they are, have overtones of “Where‘s Wally” rather than magic trick. But this is an adult view, and the kids loved it, pointing out the flies and the flowers, already discovering the magic in Dutton’s book.
When Midge discovers the monster, it is one of the scariest things I have seen in a children’s book. It is part smug grimace, part eco-terrorist and entirely self-centred. Yes, the monsters are our children; however, Midge is too agile to stay captured. As with so many similar stories, our protagonist covets what others have and is determined to take the human leftovers back to her pond.
All the other frogs look so awfully sad when Midge returns with cheese poofs, Barbie doll clothes and scraps of latex balloon. Fortunately, none of the monsters’ magical things has the desired impact, and Midge realises she can instead show her fellow frogs how to make monstrous noises and bejazzle the pond with minimal accoutrements.
Dutton’s genius is her bold use of contrasting colours, which will mesmerise your children. Her quasi-neon palette, pitched against brilliant whites and deepest purples, is part epic computer game background, part mainstream modern art, and it works spectacularly. Her illustrations are relatively abstract yet sufficiently well-rounded that when Midge hides under a rock and cries, we can understand her pain. But rest assured, her friends don’t let her wallow for long, and she is soon having the best time of all.
It feels like there is a slight environmental message hidden beneath the glorious illustrations (don’t leave litter out for froggie youths to take to their pond), but the message is clear: make your own kind of music.
April 21, 2024
cute
This was also a good one! Little one enjoyed the pics and words and really encouraged her to sound her words out too
This was also a good one! Little one enjoyed the pics and words and really encouraged her to sound her words out too
December 31, 2021
Adorable story! I love the vivid illustrations!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews