Books That Blew My Mind # 11: “The Monster At The End of This Book” by Jon Stone and Michael Smollin

Books That Blew My Mind is an occasional series here — thinking back on great books that I loved (and still love); books that found me at just the right time.

The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover

This is one of my favourite books of all time; of all time. And it’s been with me my entire life. I must have read this 11,000 times as a kid. And then forgot about it for a part of my adult life. When we were expecting our child, my folks sent down a bunch of stuff they’d found/stored — old action figures and toys, and books.

I gave away a lot of the stuff, sold some of it, traded other things — and kept a few of the trinkets. But the shining gem was my copy of The Monster at The End of This Book, which might actually have been my brother’s copy for all I know.

The book was released the same year as him. And our Little Golden Book copy was remarkably still in pretty good nick, but had clearly been thumbed-over a great deal.

It’s also just as likely that the copy was bought for me — I’m the second child, and there’s a bit of a gap. I’m the reader too. My brother simply isn’t, and wasn’t. And doesn’t. And I do, and always have, and certainly plan for that always to be the case.

Anyway, as soon as Oscar was born I wanted to read this to him. And then with him. And you just do. As a parent of a baby, you are soon looking for ways to soothe them, and for them to connect with your voice and I would read all sorts of things out, often the (adult) books I was reading. But also many of the kids books we’d started buying in prep, and ones like this we’d saved or stored.

But then Oscar discovered it for himself. And of course that was the real magic.

Katy would read it to him. Or I would, or we both would, it was very soon the subject of huge family discussions. Chief amongst Oscar’s concerns, why was Grover embarrassed?

Oscar loved the book — and I got to relive the thrill of seeing the pages nailed shut, blocked off with bricks, poor Grover’s every move defeated with delight as we continued to just turn pages. His warnings futile. His every attempt so easily thwarted. Oscar would laugh, and be nervous. He was filled with anticipation and delight. And then at the end of the book, a curious tone as he genuinely seemed baffled — missing quite why Grover was embarrassed. Never fully connected that lovable, furry ole Grover was the monster at the end of the book; he was the monster he had been warned about, and was warning us about too.

There’s layers of meaning in this simple, beautiful book. And Oscar hadn’t quite landed near one of the key concepts — and it was an interesting conversation as we tried to explain the hook.

And every time it took me back to how my mind had been blown by this book at three and four and five, and even — for “nostalgia” — at seven and eight and nine. And now in my 30s. And 40s…

I had in fact grasped the embarrassment hook, and the “monster is you”, theme; the idea that the fear is something you carry with you. What had first blown my mind with this book was the images of bricks and nails and rope, the idea that 2D illustrations could really try to move beyond even 3D concepts.

The way we were able to turn the pages. And easily. That was what blew my mind when I was kid. And maybe that’s weirder than being hung up on the embarrassment factor, but in the end isn’t it just the same?

The Monster at The End of This Book is Sesame Street’s best selling title.

A few years back I bought my own copy. The 50th Anniversary edition. I was working in a bookstore, and couldn’t believe my luck to find it. In fact, really, I bought it for my wife, who loves Monsters, Inc, and this book, and the concept of “Monsters” and has some idea to one day write an essay, or a set of essays about monsters, and how The Monster Is You, and how what you’re most afraid of is what you see in the mirror, or what you don’t see when you’re looking at yourself, or looking right past yourself, perhaps?

We still have the ‘old’ copy of the book too. That’s somewhere on Oscar’s shelf, as he has his own ‘nostalgia’ for it, and with it now. So much so that when I dug out the new copy to take photos, to re-read, to write about, he flipped his very lid. “HOW!? WHERE?! WHEN DID YOU GET THIS?!”

And even more. “THIS”, he said, “IS MY CHILDHOOD! Right here. This book. THIS IS MY CHILDHOOD!”

You can’t buy that. Even though I did, technically, what with the second copy. For safekeeping. And because this book has meant so much, in the same way, and then in our own and different ways, to everyone in my family.

Books That Blew My Mind is an occasional series here at Off The Tracks – thinking back on great books that I loved (and still love); books that found me at just the right time.

For a catch up recap of the first few in the series click here