Monsters come out of the ground tonight. Jeepers creepers, they give us a fright!
In 2017 Alison Lester and Jane Godwin visited Rawa Community school and took part in a project with children from the school that would help them to not only create their own book but build skills in art marking and creative writing.
Rawa Community school is located on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert at Punmu in the Pilbara region of Western Australia – a place where your imagination can run wild!
Monster Party is a fun tale about a band of monsters who decide to come and visit the children at school one day after dancing the night away and keeping everyone up! The monsters can do so many different things on the shores of Dora Lake such as hop, slobber, steal and growl.
Written in rhyme and drawing on the imagination of young children – especially at night time, we learn about the crazy things monsters like to do when we are not looking.
Imagination is a beautiful gift to have but sometimes those dark spaces and lack of noise out in the middle of the desert can make the imagination run a lot wilder that you would hope it does!
The children who helped to write this story have learnt to harness that imagination and turn it into a fun story about life in one of the most remote communities in Australia.
Young children will delight in the crazy, funny and intriguing monsters that pop out on each page and possibly wonder what sort of other monsters are out there dancing the night away?
Monster party is a wonderful picture book for younger readers and there is a lot of learning and fun that can be had with it!
What else can you do?
Explore the different verbs used throughout the book and think of some more things monsters can do.
Learn more about how each of the monsters were created and the printing technique. Try to replicate this technique and create your own monster!
Use a map and find out where Rawa Community school is. Find out more about life there and indigenous stories that come from the desert area.
Write your own story about a monster party somewhere near your school.
Explore the use of rhyme in this story and create your own story in rhyme.
Choose a monster in the book and write a short description of it.
