Og Meets Mog! [Ready to Read: Monster Og]
by Ame Dyckman; illus. by Elio
Preschool, Primary    Simon Spotlight    32 pp.
1/24    9781665941440    $17.99
Paper ed.  9781665941433    $4.99
e-book ed.  9781665941457    $4.99

Picture book author Dyckman (Wolfie the Bunny, rev. 3/15; How Dinosaurs Went Extinct, rev. 3/23) steps into the beginning reader market with this book for the earliest readers. Og is a turquoise monster with puffy hair, blunt horns, and one tooth—not even a little frightening. The book uses simple words, short sentences, and a lot of repetition (“This is Og. Og is nice”) to ease children just starting to sound out words into this story about the day some sort of creature appears stuck in a block of ice. Og is scared but also determined to get the creature out. Og tries bonking the ice with a log, and when that doesn’t work, it’s time for a new strategy: “Og can think and make a plan!” For its simplicity, the text has a gentle rhyme scheme and pleasing sense of rhythm that reward the work of decoding. Elio’s cartoon-style illustrations are bright, cheerful, expressive, and clearly composed, creating a path for readers who may be struggling with early phonics skills to follow the story. Once Og finally releases the creature from the ice, a new friendship is formed, and readers get a setup for future adventures with this duo.

Pubissue-From the March/April 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.