The Wanting Monster
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Marginalian Favorite Book of 2025! • From award-winning author Martine Murray (dubbed Australia’s Kate DiCamillo) and artist Anna Luisa Read comes a timeless and timely tale about the monstrousness of envy, and every creature’s—even a monster’s—need for love.
It starts with a whisper in your ear. A prickly feeling that something isn’t quite right. And it builds until a sneaky, possessive thought wriggles into your mind, and an insidious want burrows into your heart.
Before you know it, you’re discontent, convinced that you’re owed more than what you’ve got. This is the work of the Wanting Monster.
One day, the Wanting Monster arrives in a small village, but no one notices him, despite his antics. Feeling snubbed, he starts sowing discontent and envy of one’s neighbor. So infectious is the wanting and greed awakened by the Wanting Monster that even the stars are plucked, one by one, from the sky.
Covetousness and distrust reign. Will the village people ever return to their senses? Will they ever learn that it’s the monster of wanting that’s been poisoning their minds? The Wanting Monster almost triumphs . . . fortunately, he is finally seen for what he is, and this recognition unleashes the purifying force of collective lamentation and a coming together to reroot and rebuild.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This fable from an Australian duo starts slow, as the Wanting Monster, portrayed with a furry white body and a long tail, works hard to raise trouble. The story's screws tighten as the monster whines and moans into the ear of napping Mr. Banks, its words visualized as a winding stream of smoke. Instantly, Mr. Banks wants "something else, something more," and he diverts the village's stream to make himself a pool, creating envy among his neighbors, who build pools of their own and dry up the stream. Folk art–like forms and stripped-down landscapes distinguish painterly spreads by Read, making her U.S. debut, while dark backdrops contribute a note of ominousness. Little by little, the endless wanting breathed into the villagers results in overuse of the resources they need and take delight in—the water, the flowers, even the stars in the sky. Only the village's youngest child, Billie Ray, knows what the monster really needs. Murray (Marsh & Me) draws a straight line between individual greed and environmental disaster in this book about feeding deep desires. Human characters are portrayed with a variety of skin tones. Ages 6–9.
