The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit

Chris Wormell was awarded the Ragazza Prize at the Bologna Book Fair in 1991. He is the author-illustrator of the Blue Rabbit books and The Animal Train. The author lives in England.
From the Hardcover edition.

PreSchool-Grade 2–The premise of this story is a bit troubling. The omniscient narrator tells readers that once there was a big monster that lived in a cave. He was so ugly that birds and animals fled, the grass withered, and the trees shed their leaves in his presence. His supreme ugliness left him with only the rocks for company. This much-misunderstood, lonely creature began to craft animals out of stone, but they cracked to pieces when he smiled upon them. That is, all except a small stone rabbit that for some unknown reason survived and kept the monster company into his dotage. The rabbit keeps a silent vigil even after the monster's death and remains as his former environs morph into "perhaps the most beautiful place in the whole world." The fact that the monster is such a pitiable, benign character who is cruelly isolated due to his perceived ugliness is very sad indeed. His home's rebirth into lush splendor only after his death strikes an additionally tragic note. This tale may cause children to reflect on the unfairness of judging and rejecting others based on their physical attributes, but the lack of a positive resolution during the monster's lifetime also sends a somewhat hopeless message. The color illustrations portray a rather engagingly hideous creature with hidden charms and depths. So much so that children may be left to wonder what all the fuss was about regarding the monster's ugliness.–Rosalyn Pierini, San Luis Obispo City-County Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.