Even Monsters Are Shy by Busy Bee Studios is the second book in the series, with
Even Monsters Get Sick. Both books feature young boys and their big loveable monster friends. The plot of
Even Monsters Are Shy is that Ben gets circus tickets and a monster named Gurk for his birthday, but to Ben's surprise, Gurk is no fun at all. He runs or hides from everyone they meet, including Zub, the monster from
Even Monsters Get Sick, in a cameo appearance (which Brooklyn found hysterical).
Ben suspects that Gurk might be sick, but it turns out that Gurk is shy. Ben rushes to help Gurk overcome his shyness in time for the circus. He gives the monster explicit lessons in making friends.
When the lessons don't work, Ben reluctantly gives his circus tickets away. Gurk feels so terrible at having made Ben miss the circus, that he screws up his courage to make not just one new friend, but LOTS of new monster friends and put on his own monster circus just for Ben.
There are games and interactive elements throughout
Even Monsters Are Shy. Most of the hotspots are small, quick little interruptions that are germane to the plot and generally add to a beginning reader's comprehension without stopping the flow of the story for too long. For example, on the page above, where Ben begins Gurk's lessons, he tells him that Step 1 is to smile. The child can then use a finger to drag the watermelon slices into Gurk's mouth and the orange slices into Ben's mouth to give them big silly grins. Unfortunately, there is also a penguin hidden in the freezer and the blender whirs and spins when taps. These things have nothing to do with the shyness lessons, and
do interrupt the flow of the story. From a literacy standpoint, beginning readers learn nothing from hotspots like turning on the blender; whereas making Gurk smile is the lesson of the page.
Other pages are more game-like, such as the two pictured above, from Gurk's monster circus. On the top page, the reader controls the marshmallow cannon to try to shoot them at the moving targets, or into the monster's mouth. On the bottom, Gurk is riding a unicycle on the high-wire while the reader piles monsters on either end of his balance stick. While these games are probably not best practices in terms of learning to read, Brooklyn really enjoyed them. And the storyline is simple enough that she had no trouble keeping things straight... In point of fact, she set me straight on a plot point: at one point Ben and Gurk are playing happily in the backyard until, Ben says, his
sister came out. The second time we read the book together, I commented to Brooklyn that that wasn't very nice--why doesn't Ben just invite his sister to play with them? Brooklyn astutely pointed out to me that the problem wasn't that Ben didn't want her to play, it was that Gurk was too shy to play with her. Ah ha. There is nothing like having a 5-year-old explain picture books to you to make you feel simultaneously proud and small.
In sum, the message in the book is that there is no reason to be shy--everyone can learn to make friends. That is a valuable lesson for all to learn. And the book is entertaining as well as engaging. This series feels like ebooks made for a brand new medium, rather than print books that were re-engineered for the iPad. To me, the difference is that they are much more natural... the story flows and the games/hotspots/sound effects fit in without being immensely distracting. Brooklyn and I read
Even Monsters Are Shy twice together, and she must have read it on her own this week as well, since I found the app open when I came back to the iPad later. Three times in one week can only mean she likes it.
