ten friendly monsters

so i’m putting together a “kit” for a storytime about monsters this quarter at work and i was having trouble coming up with any flannel board stories about monsters (there was one for “where the wild things are” and that was pretty much it). i found a little rhyme about 5 little monsters that seemed very flannelboardy (lots of these “stories” seem to be of the, “5 little ___________ sitting on the shore, one swam away and then there were four….” ilk and this one was no exception) and i also found an adaptation of “10 little indians” made into “10 little monsters” (is it still offensive if the original tune isn’t p.c. but the new words have nothing to do with native american oppression?) great! now, i just needed to find pictures of 10 cute little monsters and i’d be all set! only, my usual source for clipart (microsoft’s website) has zippo for cute monsters. ok, maybe there’s one and half, but not anywhere near ten. or even five! so i tried google images. a few more, but mostly someone’s original and copyrighted work which i didn’t feel ok about stealing. what to do, what to do? how about tapping into my new favorite resource–teen volunteers! i wrote an e-mail to my teen volunteer list, not sure if anyone would be willing, not sure what kind of talent might exist, but hoping maybe someone could scratch out some goofy looking little monsters. yesterday at work, one of my teens came through for me in a big way! i’ve posted a few of my favorites here on this site (don’t use them without her permission!). aren’t they the cutest?!

**note** i’ve decided that i cannot, in good conscience, display the monsters here without the artist’s permission and since i’m not sure i want to tell the teens at my library about my personal blog yet… well, you see my point. if you really want to see the monsters, send me an e-mail and i’ll whisper them to you.