My Monster Mama Loves Me So

Each phase of my childhood had different bedtime books associated with them. My earliest memory of one was Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney next was The Pokey Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey all up through the second grade when I read myself books every night. My house wasn’t always the most stable growing up and reading (especially late at night when other things were going on downstairs) was a great escape. By fourth grade I had been gifted a small reading light and I read the entire Harry Potter series in just over a month. Reading far into the night and often I would wake up with the book still on me.

There is one book that I return to as having added a lot of meaning to my life: My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck. As a child obsessed with Halloween and Tim Burton films, I was already drawn to the illustration style of this book, when my mom first started reading it to my in first grade. Like many books my mom read, she developed a rhythm and tone for reading each line that I can still remember clearly to this day. Some lines were quiet and soft. Some she read slowly and with careful intent. When she read the second page of the book “When I wake up she tweaks my nose, tickles all my pointy toes” she would always tickle my toes (or my most ticklish spot in the crevice of my knee). I always looked forward to the way her voice would deepen and draw out the end of “and she comes to all my beastball games. She claps and stamps and ROARRSSS my name”. I loved the detail in the pages and loved to look for every sneaking creature with extra eyeballs.

A part of the theme of the book is that the monster mother and son have to live at night and hide during the day when the “scary things” or humans come out. Given the situations of my childhood I related to this whole-heatedly. Between being bullied at school and unsure of what I was going to come home to, my bedtime books from when my mom read them to when I read myself were the most comforting time of my day. Many humans in my life were scary and I always liked how the human were drawn to look almost unhuman. There was just something off about the way they looked. Any stories that involved what are considered the freaks, monsters and outcasts of the world made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Sadly, I am not sure the overarching theme of the book of the constant care of a mother to her child resonated with me completely. Bedtime was very few of the times I saw either of my parents and I often cared for myself. But I did know that they were proud of me anyway even if I was instantly the weird kid at school from the first day of kindergarten.

These types of children’s stories are imperative to kids that are made to feel this way for any reason. Reading and writing have always been a part of my life and I find my mental health suffers when a time goes by where I don’t do either. The way the mind can escape when reading is a powerful tool and the illustrated books we read as children lend themselves directly to the little movie that plays in our heads when reading books with no pictures. These books set a compass for our morality and teach us undeniable lessons about life. I recently read this book to a young cousin and found myself imitating the way my mom read it to me. I hope that these little details will stick with my future kids the way they stuck with me.