"Buckle up and get ready for a rollicking road trip with merry monsters.
This cast of joyful monsters in bright colors with myriad different sizes, shapes, facial features, and appendages is guaranteed to make young readers giggle. In this tour of urban and nature-based tourist attractions, the rhyming west-to-east journey connects U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Hollywood, Nashville, Orlando, and the nation’s capital, with national parks such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Everglades, and the Cape Cod National Seashore (with one generic amusement park tossed in for good measure). Most destinations merit a double-page spread with scrapbook border and the state name emblazoned across a federal highway marker. Lively illustrations capture a monster’s mischief at every stop. The San Francisco cable car turns one monster slightly green with nausea. Another grinning monster mugs for the camera as the fifth face on Mount Rushmore while a third gets its “15 seconds’ fame” compliments of Wrigley Field’s Kiss Cam. Decked out in sunglasses and floral swim trunks, a daring monster boogie boards over Niagara Fall. But who knew another would get dizzy atop Lady Liberty? In a quiet feminist statement, readers are admonished that “should you meet the president, / assure her he [the monster] won’t bite.” Background illustrations show tourists with a range of skin tones and ages, and the aforementioned president is white. A giggly geography lesson for trip planners and daydreamers." -- Kirkus Review
Degman has compiled a monstrously fun adventure that takes readers across the country, from California to New York. This silly how-to offers tips and tricks for traveling with (friendly) monsters, so that kids can make the most of their trip. Page after page of brightly colored illustrations put the monsters on hilarious display, and a map at the book's end shows all the stops on this outlandish road trip. A must-bring for any family road trips or vacation adventure. -- Booklist
Planning to take your monster on a road trip? Then you'll want to take the new book Travel Guide for Monsters with you to learn all you'll need to know for your trip.
Told in rhyme, Travel Guide for Monsters starts its cross-country trip in California and goes all the way through the country to the East Coast. The first bit of advice the author gives is:
When traveling with monsters/on a trip across the nation,/this guide will give you tips/to have a marvelous vacation.
Travel Guide for Monsters is a very fun book and definitely unique. Each page features a different monster at a different location, doing something silly. The rhymes work perfectly and add to the fun. The illustrator, Dave Szalay, has created a vast array of funny monsters that will make anyone want to take a cross-country trip with their favorite monster. A delightful book that belongs on your little one's reading shelf.
Quill says: If you're planning a cross-country road trip and would like to take your monster friend with you, it's advised that you check out Travel Guide for Monsters to get the most out of your trip. Of course, if you're not planning a trip but would like a good laugh, you too should check out this book. -- Feathered Quill Book Reviews
In this fun picture book in verse, the author Lori Degman, talks directly to the readers as if they have their own personal monster (and what preschooler doesn't?). Each page shows the monster in a different location with a warning as to what could happen to the monster if he travels there. -- Carol Baldwin's blog
Clever and funny, Lori Degman's rhymed verses follow a high-interest itinerary across the country and will delight kids, who will very much wish they could join in the ultra-fun, little-bit-risky, and larger-than-life activities in each of the landmarks visited.
-- Celebrate Picture Books
