d reader. The fact that the words do not interfere with the illustration allows the child to fully enjoy the pictures giving them creative space to develop their own feelings towards the story. The expression on the boys face is particularly important since many of the children who enjoy this story are not actually reading it themselves. The fact that Simon is drawn from different angles (face front, side view, etc.) gives the child reader a more realistic view of the boy by giving us the idea that he has different sides to him. This design lends to the overall feeling of fright by showing him from different angles and at different distances from the reader; we can assume he is very scared because he is gripping the covers and he does not move very much. The monsters are drawn in different colours and none are really frightening or disgusting. This detail gives the story the basic element of fear from munching monsters, but at the same time the child is not very scared of them. Rose gives the monsters a cute, cuddly texture as opposed to the generic green, scaly stereotype, which might very well scare the child out of sleeping! The climax comes in the middle of the book when the story words are placed below the picture of the boy and the monsters under his bed. This page is important because the way it is setup tells us that this is the climax; here it is important for the reader to focus on the picture and the story separately because each element evokes a different emotion. From here the story will begin to shift its focus from imagining monsters under the bed to finding out what is truly hiding there. The next page is a close up of Simon (the boy) realizing that his “mom”(20) left him a flashlight “Just in case”(20). He jumps up and checks out what is under his bed. As it turns out, it is his little brother; there was nothing to be afraid of after all! Children readers would relate to this even i...
