Come Face-to-Face with Some of our Most Monstrous Books – You’ll Be Surprised!
The Definition Of ‘Monster’:
Here are four commonly accepted definitions of “MONSTER”
- A large, ugly, and frightening imaginary creature.
- A thing of extraordinary or daunting size.
- A congenitally malformed or mutant animal or plant.
- (humorous) a child who behaves badly
Literary monsters can come in all shapes and sizes. Some are your typical great galumphing giants, like those from Roald Dahl’s The BFG. Some, on the other hand, can be as small as children – like those ghastly beasts in David Walliams’ The Worlds Worst Children 2.
Oh, and If you haven’t met them yet, they’re right here…
Some monsters are evil people that turn good at the end of the story, and some monsters, like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, may look like a monster, but he is simply misunderstood!
We’ve put together our top 6 monsters right here for you to enjoy. You might be surprised…
1. Miss Root from Demon Dentist by David Walliams
The dastardly devil, Miss Root, appears as the antagonist from, arguably, David Walliams’ most monstrous book Demon Dentist.
“Miss Root appears to be just like any other dentist – she has perfect teeth, wears a white lab coat and gives children sugar-free sweets.
On the other hand, her own brand of toothpaste burns through stone like acid. Her specially made toothbrush scratches your teeth away rather than cleans them. Worst of all, she insists on all her patients calling her… Mummy?!
This dentist has something mysterious about her. Of course, Alfie isn’t a fan of any dentist – but this one might be worse than even he ever imagined!” FunKidsLive
DRESS UP LIKE MISS ROOT: Some of you though, may want to dress up like Miss Root. If you do, here’s a handy guide to help!
2. The Grinch from Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas
The Grinch, from Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of those characters from children’s literature, that lingers on in your mind for your entire life! But is he really a complete monster?
At first the Whos down in Whoville (who liked Christmas a lot), are minding their own business – getting ready for the festive season – when all of a sudden the Grinch appears out of nowhere, annoyed by their love of Christmas and his hatred of it, and attempts to ruin Christmas for every-who. What a MONSTER!
And, well, to cut a short story even shorter, the Grinch ends up growing his heart THREE SIZES BIGGER and stops being a monster all together. In fact – he carves their roast beast for dinner. What a guy!
You see, not all Monsters are bad all the way through, some of them simply need a helping hand to be good.
3. Jadis the White Witch from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Jadis, the White Witch from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, is one of the most famous Witches in the literary world. As soon as Edmund meets her for the first time in the magical, frozen land of Narnia, young readers all over the world committed her to memory. No one, after reading that famous scene, will think about Turkish Delight the same way again!
Eventually Aslan the lion would save Narnia and rid the world of Jadis, but we will always remember her. And that is why she is on this list!
4. Jeanine Matthews from The DIVERGENT Series
Jeanine Matthews, from the DIVERGENT Series, has made her way onto our list because she truly is one of those Monsters that, at first, you think is on your side but progressively gets worse and worse as the story goes on, and will stop at nothing to achieve her evil aims. She reveals her true colours in Divergent. Her desire to find all the Divergent people that she thinks are a threat to their existence, makes her a truly formidable monster. Tris, however, has other ideas!
5. A Christmas Tree… Wait. What? A Christmas Tree…?
That’s right! Often scary things are only “scary” because you don’t know what they are, or you don’t understand them. Take Mog for example – she is totally petrified by that tree! But later on, when that tree had stopped walking, and and everyone was happy, it didn’t seem so bad after all. Good old Mog.
6. The Monsters of Darkmouth from… Darkmouth
You’ll be hard pressed to find a book with more monsters in it than Darkmouth.
Check out this playlist that shows you the town, the people and, of course, the monsters of Darkmouth
So there you have it. That concludes our top 6 Monsters of Monday! The funny thing about monsters, that you should always remember, is that without monsters there would never be heroes or heroines. So say a little thanks to Smaug and Gollem, to the Gruffalo and his baby. To Thing 1 and Thing 2 – for without them we’d never see the heroic and magical things that our most loved characters would do!
Oh. And don’t forget to check under the bed…
