by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 13, 2010

The illustrations are slick! Macky Pamintuan gets the shine of the moon into the mists of a swamp, with its dark shadowy trees. His illustrations look like still frames from an animated cartoon, and at times I felt like I could almost hear its soundtrack. That's because the rhyming text - by Kristyn Crow - has a sharp musical rhythm.

"I was sittin' by a swamp just hummin' a tune

with the fireflies dancin' 'neath the fat gold moon
when off in the distance was a splashin' sound,
so I stood on my tippy-toes and looked around.

I heard..

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM!

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM!"

The rhythm is infectious, and it makes the story almost secondary. There's an illustration of the scared little boy, and then another picture showing just his leg as he runs out of the frame. As he passes a moss-covered tree, there's the shadow of a toothy monster on its trunk. But the rhythm has already established that these are the events of a song - so it's mostly going to be an exercise in working its way back to the chorus.

"We heard...

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM!

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM!"


It's pretty ominous, and it had me thinking this would make a good campfire song. But to make the story less frightening, the green monster is shown as fat and waddling, with funny purple polka dots. "Kristyn Crow's worst childhood fear was that Bigfoot would climb through her bedroom window," according to the book's jacket - but it looks like she's also sharing the lesson that she'd learned from that experience. Crow dedicates the book to a group of people "who know that moms are tougher than monsters," and in the end that's where her story is headed.

Soon the boy's older brother has come to tell him their mother wants him to come home and go to bed, and his younger sister delivers the same message. But the boy warns them there's a monster in the swamp, and soon all three children end up trapped in a tree (along with two cousins who arrive later). And then the monster finally appears - roaring under the moon, which shines on its giant red tongue and its big white teeth! But then the monster itself makes a funny frightened face - because it hears the ominous sound of the children's approaching mother.

"We heard...

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM!

Splish splash
rumba-rumba
bim bam BOOM...!"

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