Cornelia Funke
Illustrated by Kerstin Meyer
Kindergarten-Grade 1–Ben is a brave and loyal little brother. Sure, he uses Anna's makeup to paint red blobs on her desk. But really they're drops of blood from the man-eating monster standing behind her, fork in hand, sprinkling her hair with a soupçon of salt. He instructs her to hide inside her wardrobe and make monster noises (no giggling–this will inflame the creature) while he attacks the suddenly ferocious armoire with his plastic artillery. While Anna extricates herself from her vanquished furniture, Ben is battling the green bathroom slime, the weekly burglar, and the backyard bears. His strength and courage are distinguished by a trail of spilt and broken things left in the wake of his heroics. Yet when night sneaks in through the windows, Ben is up against the wildest monster of all and he is so very glad to have a sister to shelter him. Meyer's color-soaked cartoons are bursting with a zany energy in which fantasy becomes real. While the text is somewhat awkward, Meyer takes up the slack whenever the words falter. This is not so much the story of a small boy's daytime bravery and nighttime fears as it is the tender description of a special sibling relationship.
