REVIEW: I Love You More than the Smell of Swamp Gas by Kevan Atteberry
From the author-illustrator of “Bunnies!!!” and “Puddles!!!,” as well as the illustrator of Tickle Monster, Kevan Atteberry, comes a monstrously tender and silly tale guaranteed to elicit lots of giggles and monster hugs.
Do you love me as much as the skink that you chase
or the smell of the swamp
or the beasts in this place?
Papa and little monster are on a skink chase in the dark, stinky swamp near home.
The smells!
The beasts!
The muck!
Papa relishes each moment of the romp, but little monster wonders: Does Papa love the swamp more than he loves his little monster?
Review
I just want to hug this one. A lot of the children’s books I’ve seen have wonderful mother characters with their children but I must have been missing most of the ones with fathers. Well, here one is complete with a monster dad and his little monster son.
Does dad love his son as much as “the bubbling slime/ that covers our feet/ in thick gooey grime?”
“I treasure you more than the slow oozing muck/ squished through our toes as we pull them unstuck. I love you as much ….as bloodsucking ducks.”
Dad loves his son more than mummified bass. More than toe-biting stones. “… more than the ghost bats in the air/ as they dive after ghost imps/ infesting our hair.”
The illustrations are wonderful, the rhymes made me laugh but I really love this one because it gives dads a chance to shine during bedtime reading. And maybe they’ll give their children the same dessert before bed – “… a bowl full of bees/ drizzled with slime/ and sprinkled with fleas!” Yum. A
~Jayne
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I haven’t had a response to my email so I guess this is as good a spot as any to ask two questions.
1) Has the Daily Deals column permanently disappeared?
2) Are the children’s book reviews the new focus of Dear Author?
@LeeF: For now at least, the Daily Deals column is on hiatus. I’m the one reviewing all the children’s books and that is because I enjoy them. Usually when I do so, I try and group a bunch on one day and it just so happens that in the past few weeks, several of them that I had requested to review were released about the same time. So that’s why you’ve seen so many lately.
Thank you for this, Jayne!!
@Jayne:
Thank you for your reply. I know you and others work very hard to make this such a great site.
@kevan atteberry: You’re welcome. When someone mentioned “Monster a Day” is in October, I knew when I was going to post it. Slime! Muck! Monsters!
@LeeF: Thank you and you’re welcome. I’m glad you’re enjoying it.