I’ve always been a little creeped out by Sam McBratney’s classic, Guess How Much I Love You. The one-upmanship in matters of the heart strikes me as manipulative and inflected with guilt.
So I was delighted to discover David Slonim’s wacky alternative, I Loathe You. Little Monster and Big Monster — entirely loveable (or loath-able?) beneath their jagged teeth and upturned horns — reassure one another of their boundless mutual loathing (monster-ese for love).
The linguistical twist should delight the kind of children (i.e., mine– and, I’m guessing, yours) who delight in playing “opposites” by persistently saying the reverse of what they mean until, in desperation, you catch them out by charging them to “continue talking opposite language forever!!!!!”
The humor builds, with vivid illustrations of fuzzy mold on cheese, splinters in rumps and slimy leaches — all loathsome, but “I loathe you more” — until Little Monster poses a serious question:
But what if I goof up someday
or if my warts all fade away? . . .
If I should slip and just obey?
then would your loathing go away?
Big Monster’s kindly answer is sufficiently robust to enable all little monsters — not to mention any parents who harbor secret anxieties about the road ahead — to shut their peepers and settle down to sleep.
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