No one expects to wake up hungry for toast only to find a monster in the kitchen. But one Saturday morning that's exactly what happens to Matias. Is it his imagination, or is the monster real? A hairy, gray monster with a yellow crest, pink tail, and orange paws. How scary! Enough to make even the bravest lose their appetite. So what does Matias do? What anyone would: he calls his mom. She sees it too, but differently from how Matias did. There's a Monster in the Kitchen explores our perceptions and how they change like a clock or a compass to show us that we each see things from our own unique point of view. The sweet, funny ending opens an unexpected window into yet another perspective: that of the monster caught cooking in the kitchen.
- Books
- Kids Fiction & Indies
- Kids Indie
- There's a Monster in the Kitchen
There's a Monster in the Kitchen
Author(s)
Publisher Name
Tapioca Stories
Genre(s)
Age Range
1+
Release Date
May 16, 2023
ISBN13
978-1734783964
ISBN10 or ASIN
Editor review
1 review
But will he do the dishes?
(Updated: June 04, 2026)
Overall rating
3.3
Plot
4.0
Characters
3.0
Writing Style
3.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
3.0
When Matias wakes up on Saturday morning, he is very surprised to find, instead of toast, a MONSTER in the kitchen. This is not just any monster; it is a smelly, scary, ugly monster who is cooking in the kitchen. Matias calls his mother, who thinks that he is exaggerating, but when she arrives, she is so dismayed that she goes to get Matias' father. When the monster in your kitchen smells like "poison bark" and has a sharp and pointy tail and claws, action must be taken! With all the commotion, the monster is finally frightened enough to drop its cooking and leave, hurrying back home to its own family, where it regales its parents with stories of the monsters HE has met, with their "pasty skin" and "murderous eyes"!
Good Points
The Tapioca Stories imprint specializes in books from Latin American originally written in SPansih and Portugese. This would explain why the verse is sometimes a bit off; it can't be easy to retain the meaning of the words and work in rhymes! I'm assuming that the original also rhymed, and the story does tick along nicely, with vivid descriptions of the monster and its actions.
The illustrations are very impressionistic; the perspective of the background is skewed and transparent, the monster is hulking and somewhat fuzzy, and Matias and his family are portrayed as being very frazzled, both by the monster and in their sometimes Dali-esque facial expressions.
Young readers will find Matias' plight amusing, and speculate about what the monster is doing in the house, and what its life back home is like. I'm most familiar with the ever amusing and classic 1971 The Monster at the End of This Book, by Stone and Smollin, but there's always room for a fun, updated monster romp like this book or Rex's Eat Pete, Eliopoulos' Monster Mayhem, or Shapiro's Alma and the Beast.
The illustrations are very impressionistic; the perspective of the background is skewed and transparent, the monster is hulking and somewhat fuzzy, and Matias and his family are portrayed as being very frazzled, both by the monster and in their sometimes Dali-esque facial expressions.
Young readers will find Matias' plight amusing, and speculate about what the monster is doing in the house, and what its life back home is like. I'm most familiar with the ever amusing and classic 1971 The Monster at the End of This Book, by Stone and Smollin, but there's always room for a fun, updated monster romp like this book or Rex's Eat Pete, Eliopoulos' Monster Mayhem, or Shapiro's Alma and the Beast.
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